Unforeseen Circumstances
by Blimlin
Summary: Remnant is a dangerous world. Humanity is hemmed into small pockets of hope, pressed inwards by the encroaching horrors that lurk in the dark. Yet all a Warpsmith of the 20th legion sees are opportunities.
1. Chapter 1

His mechadendrites tightened with a wet crunch, tiny fissures weaving themselves across a bone plated skull. A dull click sounded as his blade sank between the vertebrae of the creature. As its life bled out of it, a raging red eye stared at its blue tinted reflection in the lenses of his helm. The legionnaire gazed back, watching impassively as the beast continued its struggles of mindless aggression, until it finally grew still. Uncoiling his six mechadendrites from around the creature, he stood and walked past the five other similar carcasses, the thirsty ground beneath them drinking in their blood, their bodies torn asunder just moments earlier.

The legionnaire accessed the structure before him, the targeting cogitator on his helm magnifying individual features for his scrutiny. The architecture had a definite gothic influence, but the overall design and layout did not match the Terran or Macraggian style favored by most of the Imperium. It lacked the scale and the militarization that defined nearly all Imperial worlds. Shifting his gaze to the night sky for a few minutes, he used the red shift of the stars to calculate his position within the accuracy of a sub-sector.

Taking the information in, he silently began to rank of his current predicament on his list of ' _Most Spectacular Teleporter Mishaps'_. As a warpsmith, he had a wide range of such incidents to sort through, but he knew that it would inevitably reach tied-first. It would be alongside the moment he had witnessed a terminator phase into the wrecked hull of a dreadnought. The terminator had endured his bisection for hours before he was 'freed', only to be interned in that very same dreadnought.

He was in an unexplored region of space, since warp tides galactically south of Bakka in Segmentum Tempestus were simply too rough to risk for the slim chance of finding a habitable world. He was effectively marooned with his war gear, a mechadendrite chassis, and what he affectionately called the doomsday pod. His part in the overall battle plan was to teleport aboard the craft world, and rocket launch the doomsday pod into the Dome of Crystal Seers. Although his presence wasn't mandatory and his brothers would almost definitely be victorious without him, he had caused his legion undue effort, requiring them to switch to an alternate plan. He required them to put a contingency plan into action.

The legion had contingency measures for almost all situations, including his current one. He was to do whatever it took to alert the legion to the existence of this world, and his presence on it. Until their arrival he would have free reign to further the goals of the legion. Free Reign. _Freedom_. The idea appealed to him, and in a subconscious response he turned away from the establishment back towards his initial landing zone in the forest, where he doomsday pod was left draped in camo-cloaks.

Since the end of the Heresy, he had been a footslogger, a field operative. By now, most veterans of the long war were in organizational positions, making use of their experience on a grander scale. He had no objection to remaining a frontline legionnaire, in fact, at any time he could have simply started giving orders and even those higher up in the communications chain would have deferred to him. But he stayed at the front, thinking that he was suited to the role of the perfect instrument.

For 10,000 years he had believed that, and now he had the opportunity, no, the obligation to take up the mantle he had refused for so long. Now he could do what he once lived for; taking the role of fate. He could once again start handing out dreams, writing destinies, and sanctioning vocations. It was what defined him and the Alpha legion. He remembered the cold exultation of a decade-long plan falling into place, the purity of purpose when it would all rest upon him to bring those plans into fruition within the fiery maelstrom of battle. He remembered the soothing satisfaction of fading into anonymity after molding a world with his mind and hands. This contingency plan would be his rebirth as a scion of the Alpha legion.

* * *

Ozpin sat at his desk, nursing a cup of coffee. He was cursing the lack of forethought he had given to this year's hunter shadowing. Some assignments would need to be handled by staff; many of the more active hunters and huntresses were on missions that simply didn't allow shadowing. Perhaps he could convince Bartholomew to lead a mock expedition. Glynda was nearby, working through similar preparations for the semester to come.

The dullness of the work seeped into them, and after a few minutes of silence they both found themselves staring out of the windows, waiting for something to remind them that a world existed beyond tedium that was Beacon's paperwork. Right on cue, an odd flare stretched up from the Emerald Forest, its trail burning consistently, arcing slowly and inexorably towards the sky. They continued watching it for several moments, but Ozpin, guessing that since it hadn't stopped yet it wouldn't for a while, broke the silence.

"There's the excuse we've been waiting for."Ozpin murmured. With that, he collected his cane and made to get up from his chair. Only for Glynda's harsh tone to sit him back down.

"Probably just a new type of firework, we should send a team to deal with it." Another flare rose from the forest, this time curving in a different direction.

"The risk of a fire in the forest is a serious one, fireworks or not. We can't risk any potential forest fires, not while we aren't out there, the numbers of Grimm it would attract would be too dangerous this close to Vale."

"You are taking this far too seriously" Glynda pulled up a file on her scroll. "There is a third year team with free time right now, I'm sure they could deal with whatever it is. You are going to stay here, whether or not you can handle your administrative responsibilities." Ozpin placed his cane back down, making a conciliatory gesture.

"Your lack of faith in my abilities wounds me." he replied dryly. "We should at least monitor them. It would be interesting to see just who might have left the walls of Vale to set off whatever those were."

"Your wish for ringside entertainment might actually be granted, the surveillance system that we used for the initiation this year is still in the forest. I'll see that team SRLT gets on a bullhead. I _will_ be back soon."

"I never expected cowardice from you Glynda, leaving me at the mercy of the paperwork." Glynda was halfway to the elevator when she shot him an icy glare, promising retribution.

* * *

There was a mysterious substance that seemed to infuse nearly everything in the world around him.

When he first 'touched down', he was immediately beset by the local wildlife, not giving him time to consider the more arcane readouts of his armor. After the majority learned to avoid him, or the stench of their fellow's offal, he was puzzled by the readouts. He found a substance that most commonly took a particulate form, with four major sub-types. Even as his analyzed it he could see the substance at work, morphing matter in unprecedented ways. They were like catalysts to reactions that simply shouldn't happen.

At this point, he would normally throw the samples over his shoulder and declare the world warp stained, but he could not detect any rips or creases in time-space, not one reading was a single milithere above reality-baseline. The entire world seemed touched by the warp, but not corrupted the way daemon worlds were. It was as if something had tweaked reality to conform to subtle changes in the laws of physics. He decided that his readouts had told him enough, he was an Alpha legionnaire first, and a Warpsmith second. He knew the limits of the machine when it came to subtle differences of perception, he knew the value of more fundamental senses.

He took off his helm, inhaling the rush of air that accompanied his armor's decompression. He could feel his immune system spooling up to full readiness as he let the world's air fill his three lungs. The planet was saturated with the substance, everything infused to some extent. His body and augmetics detected the foreign chemical agent and started efficiently filtering it out of his blood stream. As he looked at the world around him, everything seemed so much more _vibrant_ than it from behind his helmet lenses. The colors were more intense, the green of the trees became a startling emerald, the grey of rocks and stones gained a metallic sheen. But everything seemed fundamentally different, as if an internal glow pervaded everything on the world, creating a much brighter, striking image than he had seen on any other world. He looked down at his gauntlets, and the two mechadendrites that sub-consciously mirrored his flesh-limbs. Their dark blue-green was subdued compared to world around him, and the normally proud and bright Legion's hydra painted onto his gauntlets seemed subtle and discrete. The fact that one of his eyes was an augmetic and still registered these differences only served to further his theory about reality tampering. He replaced his helmet, and strode back away from his makeshift orbital launch site.

He hadn't realized just how low the gravity was on this world, whether his astartes biology adjusted to the change quickly, or the evident size of the world led him to believe the gravity was greater than it actually was. The gravity was ludicrously low, he hadn't believed it until he made the calculations needed to launch the two rockets into orbit. The first carried surface samples, along with pure samples of the particles he was able to filter from the air. It went into an east-west orbit, indicating to any Alpha Legion vessels precious cargo or technical documents to be recovered. The second went into a west-east orbit, which was reserved for signaling devices. He was both proud and puzzled by the fact that he was able to create something that could get a signal into the warp. It used reverse-engineered Gellar field technology to send a signal that an astropath could pick up, and deduce a location from. If they knew the Legion's long range communication cant.

He was puzzled that the world that seemed to suppress the influence of the warp in such a unique way would let a signal get into the warp in the first place. Perhaps it was a unique property of the Geller field that allowed a signal to be broadcast, without first breaking the potential barrier between real space and the warp. Who knew? Yet more knowledge lost with the ancients, waiting to be recovered.

To launch the rockets he had to remove both boosters from the doomsday pod. If it wasn't for the camo-cloaks, the pod would have stood out like the plasteel and ceramite monolith it was. Without the rockets, it was practically immobile. Theoretically the low gravity would make it possible for him to bodily lift it, but the bulk of the pod would ensure effectively no peripheral vision. Nonetheless, his signal would be transmitted, and he had his end of the contingency to hold up.

His nostalgia for the great crusade had clearly influenced his plans, but he thought that it was appropriate given the circumstances. Segmentum Tempestus was bleak area for the Legion, especially in the southern half. Their operatives, legionnaires, and vessels had no havens to rearm, repair, or recruit. And here he was, a few thousand light years south of Bakka, with an untouched world at his fingertips. He would turn this world into the clandestine stronghold of the Legion in Tempestus, the new resources would be exclusive to the Legion, and the planet itself would be geared towards the goals of the Legion, whether the local populace knew or not.

A sudden noise caught his attention, a flying vehicle passing close to the forest, its flight pattern clearly showing its intent to deploy infantry down into the trees. It seemed that the problem of first contact would be solved for him.

* * *

Sepia led the way into the forest, keeping team SRLT on a close leash. They were used to her tendency for caution as a leader, and they had no problems with her leadership style. While they had an instinct to overcommit, they respected her ability to keep them organized so long as she was hands off after giving her initial orders.

Her scroll brought her towards the area the fireworks were launched from. Professor Goodwitch hadn't said much about the mission at all, other that it probably being some trouble maker out on an alcohol induced stunt. On the Bullhead, Sepia told SRLT that they were going to have to find whoever it was before the Grimm did.

The launch site was a small clearing, and there was no sign of any fires whatsoever. The only oddity was the way that two spots on the ground seemed to have melted into glass. Splintered, brown and cloudy glass, but it was glass nonetheless. She had only seen dust explosions do something like this before, but the lack of collateral damage led her to believe otherwise. Her team was looking at her expectantly.

"Let's get this over with team Scarlet. We'll scout west; whoever it was probably wants to get back to Vale now."

With that, they were on the move, her team forging ahead in the forest while she stayed back and looked more carefully for anything that might help their search. Ozpin's small surveillance drones buzzed around at head level, not bothering to conceal themselves. They meandered slowly though her search formation, as if to record it and analyze their actions. After a while they turned away from her and followed her team further west. She shook her head. Of course Ozpin wanted to watch his students during this almost-mission.

She followed the drones, keeping SRLT in earshot, oblivious to the other eyes that watched her with a similar gaze of measurement.

* * *

The floating machines reminded him of servo skulls, but they were much smaller, zipping around with all the grace and intelligence of sentient grapes. Regardless, they kept him away from a perimeter until his noospheric overrides were calibrated for what was essentially xeno-tech. He could have used a brute force method, but if the surveillance devices all simultaneously plunged to the ground before rebooting and following completely different paths, the person on the other end would most likely suspect foul play.

So he did it subtly, establishing a passive control connection with each one, seeing which was under manual control, and which was under pre-programed behavior. The operator or viewer seemed competent, but clearly wasn't attentive to this possibility. To the Legionnaire, it was simply a matter of moving in a dance with a partner that only he could see; he guided the devices away from the leader, surrendering control each time the viewer felt a whim to control a different set of eyes. He took advantage of the tedium to commit the group's formation to memory, guiding several machines at once to follow the three subordinates.

Their leader was isolated from all visual contact, none of the ten machines would face her, and none of the three others would watch her. It was a perfect time to strike and he took it.

His form flowed out from the thick tree line, covering the distance to the leader in two silent, rapid strides. Not breaking step, he placed one hand over her mouth as other tightened around her neck, and his mechadendrites wrenched the rifle from her grip. An odd resistance flared under his grip, glowing between his fingers. He clamped down harder, and just as soon as it appeared, the resistive force vanished. He slid back into the denser part of the forest, her form soon to be unconscious as his grip starved her brain of oxygen. After a moment he loosened his grip, and checked the movements of the group and the machines: They were still moving further away.

In those few moments, the ambient sounds of the forest had obscured what little noise he would have made. The odd flash hadn't attracted any attention. Now he could get solid information on the civilization on this world, and he also had the opportunity to send anyone in authority a message or a statement. But he couldn't let anyone see him immediately, more specifically he couldn't let this leader see him, not before he had a basic knowledge of the world from their point of view.

As he thought about the problem, he realized that his two criteria were not mutually exclusive.

* * *

Glynda was pacing back and forth in Ozpin's office, frustration and indignation radiating off her. Ozpin had gone into his deepest state of forethought and planning, his coffee left disregarded on the far side of his desk. One could practically feel the glacial water coursing through Ozpin's veins as he considered the situation.

Team SRLT had gone into Emerald Forest 12 hours ago, and only found their leader 4 hours ago. Sepia was found unconscious, as the team described it, in the torn-open chest cavity of a Nevermore. As Glynda had pointed out when Sepia's disappearance was first noticed, SRLT was possibly the worst team for it to happen to. Their team's organization and cohesive ability was anchored around their leader, and forcing the team to search for her in a Grimm infested forest was a mortifying experience for them. Ozpin could only groan, and sink his face into his palms as he saw their communication collapse in a silent panic, their efforts to organize shattered by the lack of any instinctive cohesion between them. He was sure that they only found Sepia by blind chance.

"I want this settled quickly Ozpin, I don't like whatever is out there." Ozpin remained silent, but gave Glynda a slow nod to indicate his attention. "We should muster all the qualified hunters and huntresses we can, and perform a systematic search of that region of the forest. We should requisition whoever we can to do it as quickly and effectively as possible."

Ozpin breathed in, and shifted in his chair. "I think that we concur, but we shouldn't mobilize to that extent: We mustn't create a general panic. Still, it would be the right idea, to at least go through the motions of a reaction. I think that the staff here will be sufficient, along with whichever hunters are close by. I want them ready by tomorrow, see to it."

Glynda nodded curtly, and left the room. Ozpin pulled up the information that he had gotten back from the team, spreading out the meager images and reports over the holographic surface of his table. It was depressingly uninformative, once you got past the vented panic and relief of the team that was imbedded in the after-action reports.

There were no sightings, the few footprints that the team had identified as 'suspicious' were clearly either Grimm or animal. Sepia remembered nothing except cold metal breaking though her aura, and closing around her face and neck. The time Sepia was ambushed was one of the few times the autonomous surveillance drones, and the ones he was controlling himself, weren't facing her. It was all frustratingly useless, a first year student could have deduced as much as he could.

But there was one report that caught his eye: The equipment report. Normally it consisted of ammunition spent, magazines and clips left in the field, and occasionally damaged weapons and armor. But this time, it contained a bizarre combination of missing and displaced items and equipment. All of Sepia's protein bars were missing from her waist pack, and her water canteen was emptied. The most fascinating lines were about what was simply displaced or damaged. Everything she had with her that contained writing was blatantly inspected, her notebook was paged through, and every scrap of paper was un-rumpled and flattened out before being returned to one of her belt packs, even the tags on her hat and packs were torn off, and then placed back on her person.

Her ax-rifle was the most interesting case; it was disassembled far beyond the regular field strip level, every screw, cog, spring, lever and plate was separated. Her dust cartridges were removed from a dissected ammunition clip and distributed amongst her pockets. The rifle wasn't even put back together, the parts were simply poured into the various belt packs that she wore.

The visitor was clearly searching for information, in any and every form. Ozpin wondered why they would search on such a fundamental level, what good would chunks of a year old pamphlet do to anyone? Why would they need to conceal themselves, and subject potential rescuers to brutalities when they clearly are looking for information?

Ozpin reached for his lukewarm coffee, and downed it. He would know soon enough, Glynda wasn't one to make mistakes like SRLT.

* * *

It had been two weeks since Glynda's search; nothing had come of it other than Glynda finding a stone waiting near one of the bullheads with the words 'commendable effort' scratched into it. The surveillance drones had been left to search the area continuously, and programmed to highlight any significant topographical differences that they detected.

Since then, Ozpin had time to think about the initial incident, and he realized that team SRLT was performing consistently better than they did before it. It seemed that their team dynamic had changed; now ensuring that everyone knew what the other was doing, with constant communication underscoring their cooperation.

To almost all of the staff's disapproval, leaving him push forward alone as headmaster, he sent more 3rd and 4th year teams in to 'search' for their mysterious visitor. They were all similarly terrorized, anywhere between one to three people would disappear, only to be found in somewhat questionable states hours later. The experience galvanized the teams, and after the latest team returned shaken, but unbowed, their visitor had even started to gain the respect of Glynda, each time having taught the teams something, however violently, that she simply couldn't in her combat classes.

Ozpin already had one student in mind that might benefit from such a treatment. Russet was a deer faunus, and while Beacon gave their full support to any faunus that wanted to attend, Russet was quite unpleasant to teach. In his first year, he had already displayed an egotistical attitude, putting down his classmates and even teammates whenever possible. Normally such behavior would most likely be shot down after a classmate grew tired of their nonsense and stood against them, much like the situation with Cardin Winchester in the current first year. But Russet knew exactly what he could get away with. After 3 years at Beacon, he had developed from a smart-ass with a running mouth to a vain, manipulative, cancerous lesion on the student body. He couldn't be expelled, since on paper, he was a perfect student; performing exceedingly well academically, and showing marvelous potential in combat. As Russet' graduation grew near, the staff knew that they would probably have to hand him his certificate with their teeth grit, not willing to give such a person a position of power over anyone. Ozpin wanted to break that cruel demeanor, and let Russet achieve his true potential, rather than holding everyone around him back.

Yet in the deepest, darkest part of his mind, Ozpin felt like he had made a mistake. Had he admitted a sociopath into Beacon? If that was the case, Ozpin shuddered to think of the consequences. Perhaps their visitor would rectify the situation, or at least shed light on mental state of Russet.

Glynda practically ran into the staff canteen, almost barreling into Peter, and rousing Ozpin slightly from his mental haze.

"The drones found a short path in the Emerald Forest, a person must have walked it regularly for at least a week."

Ozpin snapped into alertness, he couldn't pass this opportunity up. "It matches our time frame; we should definitely take advantage of this."

Bartholomew seemed to materialize in front of the coffee dispenser, but still regarded Ozpin. "That is all well and good, carpe diem as the old saying goes, but what exactly would we do?"

"Confront our visitor of course."

* * *

The world he was on was called Remnant. It was an odd name as far as worlds went, normally the inhabitants settled for something less open ended. Armageddon was a good example, the name necessitated no further description. Nevertheless, it fitted the world in its own way.

Between the various teams sent out in attempts to purge him from the forest, and his own exploration of the surrounding areas, he had managed to accumulate a substantial information pool on the world. However, to make more progress of any kind he would have to contact the civilization on this world. He was hoped that he hadn't made a horrific mistake when interpreting the fragmented snippets of information that he had managed to glean from the temporary prisoners he took. For a fevered moment he entertained the idea of the people of this world practicing ritual sacrifice to appease the impatient gods of gravity. _"O mighty Gravitus, accept this sacrifice, our humble offering, so that you in your infinite pull and force may smile upon us and deign to keep us, your most pitiful servants, on this ground that is your altar."_

Shaking the image from his mind, he reflected on the idea of the meeting that he was about to orchestrate. After a while, he had come to the conclusion that there were entities in authority sending the four man teams to hunt him. They seemed to belong to the institution that he had seen when he first arrived on the world, and while he could question their taste in weaponry, they were more skilled than your average guardsman. But the infrastructure behind their deployment suggested that they didn't formulate the entire plan themselves. Perhaps they were given a set of objectives, their gear, and were sent on a transport to hunt him? The lack of standardization in their gear gave him cause to doubt that sentiment, but the evidence for his theory overwhelmed that doubt.

He returned to where the pod had sat for the since he had torn off its rocket engines. As he linked to the pod noospherically, he could see that it was still stable. He felt a measure of pressure lifted from him, it would be _extremely difficult_ for him to deal with the consequences if the pod were to destabilize. It was designed to be a container, not a prison.

He started moving towards the path he had beaten into the forest, making sure that the machines had noticed it. As he checked their statuses, he noticed that the operator had started controlling them again. This time was different. The other times, they would monitor a team's progress and serve as a part of the perimeter. This time they were acting as a scout party, relying only on themselves to clear an area. The operator seemed to be multitasking, switching machines regularly to gain a better view of the clearing. The operator of the machines was coming. Surprised by the speed of their reaction, he moved at a full sprint, making sure that he would get to the clearing in time to confront the operator.

His relentless pace battered branches from his path, shattering stones beneath his heels. The twisted physics of the world made him curl his lip in distaste. Everything was so breakable.

The legionnaire raced the incoming aircraft, his cogitator spewing line after line of updated intercept data across his vision. He hid the feed with a moment's focus; he could measure his progress against the aircraft's without it. The advantage of arriving at their landing site was slight at best, but to the legionnaire it mattered.

He skidded to a stop several meters from the edge of the clearing, just in time to see the aircraft set down and deploy two people amongst the floating machines. They carried themselves with a sense of certainty that the other groups lacked. Finally, he found someone who knew what they were doing.

* * *

"Do you really think that we should be giving out supplies to whoever terrorizes our students?"

"Mm."

"I think that we should try to send a different message Ozpin. As interesting as the effects of the attacks are, we should still recognize that they are just that: Attacks."

"Hm."

"Suppose the perpetrator left the area, and told others of his daring exploits against Beacon Academy, our reputation would be tarnished. Think about it, civilians doubting the prowess of Vale's hunter academy, the outcry would be huge! And here we are, about to give out food, water, information, and even a private meeting with the professors of Beacon as a reward for it all."

"Glynda…" Ozpin started, shifting in his seat as the Bullhead rose off the ground.

"I'll admit Ozpin, the teams that were affected have improved greatly. But we must keep in mind that we don't know anything about this person. They could have come from anywhere, and we wouldn't know! I don't follow your reasoning at all, why are we going out of our way to help this person?"

Ozpin had been staring out a window for some time now, waiting for her rant to finally exhaust itself. He hadn't failed to notice that despite all of Glynda's warning rhetoric, she still hung onto the supply package that they prepared for their visitor. He took a sip of his coffee and finally regarded her fully.

"You are right when you say that we don't know anything about this person."

"So surely you understand my line of argument."

"I understand it. But I think that for the same reasons, we should help them."

"And that is where I lose you."

"Think about it, whoever this is has been ambushing whoever is sent to look for them. They are extremely skilled, giving us no concrete information on them. At the same time, they are making no attempt to hide the fact that they are looking for any and all information. That is why I am interested in them."

"So they search whoever they capture, what makes them so special as to warrant this treatment?"

"Search them? _Search?_ Think about it Glynda! Search is too weak a word! Every possible vessel of information on the captured students was blatantly worked over, analyzed and recorded!"

"Glynda, just think about what would drive someone to stick it out in a Grimm infested forest for weeks on end, pushing away every chance of escape, and keeping themselves hidden from us! Think about what would motivate them to painstakingly trawl through the belongings of their captives, only to replace it all and leave them strapped to a dead ursa."

Glynda stayed silent, staring down at the bundle on her lap, twisting the riding crop between her hands. Ozpin took another sip of his coffee. "I am deeply interested in our visitor, and I want to give them these supplies, as… a token of cooperation. In my mind, their actions show that they know as little about us as we do about him."

"I think that whoever it is might know more now, Ozpin."

"And we shall rectify that situation with this…meeting…shan't we?" Ozpin saw that the bullhead was drawing close to their destination, and he started to use the surveillance drones to investigate the area before they landed.

After the drones confirmed that the path was still there, and the immediate area was monitored, Ozpin and Glynda strode off the bullhead. The clearing was in one of the thicker parts of the Emerald Forest, the trees obscuring their vision into the forest proper. The path led away from the denser tree line, probably to avoid the difficult and rocky terrain that surrounded it.

With an unspoken agreement, the two started walking down the path, glancing ever so often down at their scrolls to check different drone feeds. They turned with the path, noting that it was rather wide for a single person to have worn out in a few weeks. They continued until it they hit a sudden dead end, the dense forest obscuring, but not restricting their path. Then they both felt it, an odd shadow on their minds, their mental maps of their immediate surroundings changed in a subtle way. It was difficult to describe, but anyone could recognize the feeling. It was the feeling of space being filled outside of their field of view, like a door opening silently out of one's sight. They turned around and saw their visitor.

A mismatched pair of glowing blue eyes stared at them from a vantage point two and a half meters off the ground, one of them flush with the surface of the helm, the other connected to a blocky telescoping apparatus. He was clad in dark green-blue armor, with unidentifiable iconography painted across the metallic surface, the plates leaving his body completely untouched by the outside world. The figure regarded them, the eyes boring into them as they took in yet more of the sight before them. The massive chest plate bore a three headed beast, tinted a lighter, more striking green than the rest of the armor. The same symbol was etched into the pauldrons of the armor. The powerful limbs, decorated in a flowing unreadable script, thicker than tree trunks. The six tendril like appendages that curved around from his back, each subtly mirroring the larger humanoid limbs.

Ozpin and Glynda didn't expect anything like him, they both had come to the conclusion that it was either a rogue hunter, or possibly a skilled vagabond that lived outside the kingdoms. They could never have predicted this veritable avatar of destruction. Nothing about him seemed familiar, the alien nature of the armor, the glowing mismatched eye lenses, the extra appendages snaking around him.

Yet to Ozpin and Glynda, the worst aspect of the stranger wasn't immediately noticeable with the naked eye. To them, he seemed to lack a quality that they had seen in practically everything in their lives. It seemed like he was muted to the world around him, like he was a void, a negative space for light and color to enter and never return.

The silence between them drew out, both parties not knowing quite what to say to the other. Ozpin decided to take the initiative, and sidestepped to the other side of the path, not wanting either group to feel blocked or trapped.

"You must be our visitor then." The silence seemed to make a return, although the figure took a less hostile stance, seeming more contemplative than murderous. Ozpin heard Glynda mutter 'Even by your standards this is insane." If he heard her, he gave no indication of it, simply gave a single, slow nod in answer to Ozpin's previous question.

Not one to lose momentum, Ozpin continued, with a faint knowing smile, and an air of eagerness. He decided to start with something he knew would get results. "Fascinating, very fascinating, now would you mind telling us where you learnt to do this?" Ozpin held out his scroll, displaying an image of Sepia's disassembled weapon. The stranger leaned forwards, one of the tendrils snaking out to collect the scroll, and hold it steady for his scrutiny. After a moment, the scroll was transferred to a gauntlet, which then returned it to Ozpin.

The dark helm seemed to emit a low hiss, the sudden sharp noise making Ozpin and Glynda wince slightly. They realized that the stranger had just inhaled, preparing to speak. When he spoke it was a visceral noise, like gravel being poured over a grave, deep enough for them to feel in their chests, reverberating even as he spoke.

"Mars, but you might not have heard of it." Ozpin and Glynda glanced at each other, confirming what he had said. "Perhaps you could enlighten us further, maybe you could mention some associated firms or organizations of Mars?" The helm tilted to the side for a moment.

"If Mars carries no significance to you, then satellite institutions would only sound more… otherworldly, shall we say." Glynda heaved a sigh, knowing that they were going to get nowhere at this rate. Ozpin set his jaw and clasped his hands. He had just enough of this beating about the bush, having watched student teams do it literally in the past weeks, to no avail.

"How about we cut this charade short, and get down to business. We know very little about you, and judging from your actions, you know just as little about us. How about we help one another with that problem right here, right now." At this point, the figure seemed to animate, the blue eyes glinting. Was it with indignation? Surprise? Amusement? Nonetheless, he carried an assertive air that he previously lacked, the already imposing presence now made palpable.

"Possibly. Regardless, a mutual exchange of information would be beneficial to both of us. At least one unfettered by minced words."

"Excellent." Ozpin decided to maintain the momentum he had achieved. "What are you doing in the Emerald Forest?"

"Collecting information about this world, as I am now." The figure looked between the two of them, the fixed metallic visage hiding all expression. "Now tell me, who are you to the building complex west of here?"

"I am Ozpin, and my companion is Professor Goodwitch. I am the headmaster of Beacon academy, and my companion is a professor there."

"And Beacon academy is?"

Glynda and Ozpin were taken aback; even the most ignorant of hermits outside the kingdoms knew the names of the hunter academies. Their visitor truly knew little about them at all. Their teaching instincts took over, and soon they had described the function of hunters, the position of the academies in the kingdoms, and how Beacon fit into it all. The stranger seemed extremely attentive throughout the torrent of information, or was it simply the nature of the unblinking eyes?

"Interesting… So these groups sent after me, they were training groups."

"Correct, they were in their third and fourth years." With that, the figure started to move up the path, speaking to them as he walked.

"This was a satisfactory exchange of information. I see no more point in staying here." Ozpin realized what was happening, he felt like a test pilot whose joystick just snapped in his hands. He started after the figure.

"An _exchange_? I think that you are ignoring the key word here!"

"This path is long enough, I shall humor you until we reach the end." Ozpin watched the massive limbs eat up the distance, taking one step for every two of his. Glynda was still electing to stay quiet and let Ozpin take either the credit or blame for whatever resulted.

"Where are you from? Plainly, please don't leave it to us to infer." The helm now emitted a harsh grating noise, filled with static. The stranger was chuckling.

"I suppose you deserve that much for indulging me so. Very well, I am not… of this world. I arrived here due to… unforeseen circumstances, and have been orientating myself since." As he finished, they reached the clearing, the bullhead siting in the center and the sun drawing closer to the horizon.

The golden white glow slowly turned orange as it danced across the vibrant green trees. The leaves filtered the light, speckling the grass of the clearing with a faint kaleidoscopic effect. The colors were cut into harshly as the stranger took steps towards another side of the clearing, the dark armor reflecting none of the soft glow, completely at odds to the world around him.

Ozpin and Glynda were too shocked by his previous answer to register anything more than a subtle wrongness with the image. Glynda was the first to free herself of the stupor.

"The package, Ozpin!" Ozpin started, and nodded towards the receding silhouette. Glynda jogged forwards to catch up, and he turned, sensing her approach. She handed over the supplies, wrapped in a grey cloth with the two axes of Vale blazoned across it.

"As a gesture of good will, from Beacon academy." He nodded mutely, not examining the package, handing it to one of the robotic arms. As she peered up at him, the cobalt glow of his eyes burned their afterimage onto her retina. In the spur of the moment she asked: "Who are you?"

* * *

To the Legionnaire, the lie came easily. He had repeated it so many times it had carved itself across his mind. To him it wasn't a lie anymore. It was an honest declaration of his identity, and all that he represented as an individual. He was the first bulwark against the terror, but he was also brick in the wall. He was the crest of the wave, but he was also a drop in the ocean. He was the tip of the spear in the immensity of a phalanx. To outsiders he was One of Many. He was Alpharius.

"I am Alpharius."

* * *

With that, he turned and left, moving deeper into the forest before Glynda could reply. Glynda walked back onto the bullhead, and sat down next to an equally spent Ozpin. As the engines started up they began to rise above the tree line. Glynda heard Ozpin mutter something.

"What was that professor?"

"I bet Bartholomew a week's worth of coffee that we would be immensely underwhelmed with our visitor, when we found out." Glynda shook her head, sighing.

"If only, Ozpin. If only. So what shall we do now?"

Ozpin looked up, and blinked slowly. "I am open to suggestions."

"Now that I think about it, I see no reason to discontinue our previous course of action. I think that we achieved somewhat of an understanding with him."

"I never expected you, of all people, to advocate that."Ozpin gave her a bemused look. Glynda pointedly ignored it.

"Let's just say that I have come to see that the benefits of it outweigh the risks."

"Even after what just happened?"

"To be perfectly honest, I don't know exactly what just happened. I feel like we have more questions than answers now."

"True" mused Ozpin. "But I think that the new questions are demonstrative of our information of the situation developing, not reducing." Glynda could only nod, and sit back as the bullhead accelerated towards Beacon.

* * *

His hasty retreat from the meeting wasn't just an attempt to undercut the two professors in the information exchange. If that was the only motivation, the legionnaire would have considered it a crude and rushed manipulation, not worthy of the Legion. In part, it was a test of their mettle, to see if they would enforce his end of the unspoken bargain.

Mostly, he left because a noospheric indicator that had lit up inside his vision, telling him that the doomsday pod was starting to lose stability.

Since the indicator told him that the pod wasn't critically unstable, he wasn't moving at a reckless speed, bludgeoning obstacles aside, and mowing down trees in his path with his storm bolter. Still, he reached the pod at a quick march, a mechadendrite equipped with a data port stabbing into the side of the pod. The internal systems told him that the pod had destabilized because the machine spirits were mortally offended for reasons known only to the Omnissiah. He cursed silently, apparently that was the nonsense you got when you reverse engineered Imperial tech in this millennia.

He belonged to a school of thought that considered machine spirits to only manifest in machines of certain power and influence. The most obvious examples were the War Engines of the Collegia Titanica, their god-like status unquestioned. To him, it took the influence of walking legends from bygone age of unrivaled destruction to forge a true machine spirit. Only in such circumstances could machines gain a soul. Anything of less magnitude simply couldn't gain one. This connected machine spirits to the nature of the warp in a way that made sense to him, since to him a consciousness could only appear in something capable of asserting it. Yet the fools in the Mechanicus insisted that even inert technology like the glorified refrigeration unit in front of him should be respected and honored in such a way.

For that reason, he was sure that the pod wasn't destabilizing because it grew discontent with its duties. Maybe something inside the doomsday pod had changed, interfering with the analyzers linked to the data port. Considering what was inside, he hoped it wasn't the case. Either way, the pod would stay shut for a while. He still had some time before he had to do something about it.

For now, he had time to deal with other matters. He looked to the cloth bundle that Goodwitch had given him. It was a simple gray affair, with the school's insignia printed across it in black. As he un-wrapped the bundle, he wondered what was inside it. A hidden tracking device? More information? A highly explosive trap? Even as he considered the possibilities, the auspex in his targeting cogitator eliminated them. The contents were inert on nearly every level. He pulled the last fold of the cloth aside to reveal… Provisions. Water and Foodstuffs. Between his enhanced physiology and his augmetics it would last him nearly a year, assuming it was nonperishable.

The development was surprising, before the meeting he had expected a show of force, to demonstrate how those in authority weren't bothered by their subordinates' misfortune. But then they gave him supplies, practically encouraging him to continue. Of course, they wouldn't know the uselessness of their gift, considering how little they knew of the galaxy around them, but something bothered him about the situation.

Whether it was intentional or not, by giving him the supplies, the professors established a power dynamic that was displeasing to the legionnaire. As he began to consider the events from the professor's point of view, it all started to fall into place. It was disgusting; he had been used as a _training resource_. He was regarded as little more than a punching bag. They sent out the student teams to experience what it was to be the hunted, not the hunters. The supplies created a gift relationship between them, and the fundamental nature of them indicated his subservience. He was sure that their actions were unconscious, not knowing what he was when they assembled the package. Still, he needed to reverse this misconception before it progressed further.

It would have been much easier if the pod hadn't destabilized. He probably would have found a way to accompany the two back to Beacon, and establish himself in a more suitable manner. For now he was stuck in the forest with a false reputation. He knew it wasn't necessarily bad to have a false reputation, he had often employed them to great effect in the past, but this wasn't one of his own making.

Right at this moment, Beacon could be acting in a manner that the legionnaire didn't want. He had gathered all the information he could from the shadows of this forest, and the false label pushed upon him wouldn't help to get him out. He needed to be recognized as a more maverick entity, not something akin to a mindless drone.

He concluded that more drastic actions needed to be taken. To him, this cycle needed to be stopped violently and immediately before it started. And if he could send a message to them about the galaxy he came from at the same time, all the better.

* * *

Normally whoever Alpharius captured went missing for six to eight hours. Russet' team had come back sixteen hours after he went missing. Without their leader.

Ozpin had talked with them, trying to get any information out of them about what happened to Russet himself. The consequences of leaving their team leader in the Emerald Forest would have to be decided later.

When Ozpin and Glynda were thinking about the next team to send into the forest, Glynda suggested Russet' team. Out of every team that had gone in, the leader of the team was always amongst those who disappeared for a while. They thought that since none of Russet' peers would denounce his conduct and lifestyle, perhaps Alpharius would show Russet that he wasn't as untouchable as he thought.

"Let me go back out, even if I don't find Alpharius, I'll find Russet." Glynda said. As they walked towards the Bullheads, Ozpin nodded slowly. His eyes had regained their calculating gleam, but this time there was an edge of nervousness to them.

"Immediately? I think that we should get you extra eyes to cover your back first."

"Another team? No Ozpin, I don't think we should risk any more students. It's already my fault we're missing one, I don't want to lose any more on my watch."

"And I won't let one of my professors go missing either. I'm sure that if you are in charge, no one will disappear. When you ran the proper search, not a single person went missing for a second."

"We still didn't find him."

"That is beside the point. Glynda, you have the best…record, shall we say, when it comes to going into the Emerald Forest and coming back out with a team. We both know that for a fact that by yourself, won't be able to keep track of every angle. Now go wake up some team, and get on a bullhead."

Glynda rubbed her temple, a tired look going across her face. She replied in a whisper. "Ozpin, I don't know what to look for. I don't know what has happened. I don't know what will happen. I just can't stop thinking about how little I know about this whole situation."

"Glynda, I don't think anyone at Beacon knows much." Ozpin gave her a significant look. "That is why I want you out there, with a team. I as little as I know about Alpharius, the fact that I know that you'll be out there removes a degree of all this uncertainty. I know that you'll get results, whether we like them or not."

With that, the pair separated, one going to his office at the top of the tower, the other towards the first year dorms.

* * *

"Good memories Jaune?" Pyrrha pointed up at a tree that had a suspiciously spear shaped hole in it.

"Pyrrha, right now there are only two things keeping me going: Absolute fear of professor Goodwitch, and caffeine. Even if I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to remember hanging there."

Team JNPR didn't quite know what was going on. All they remembered was professor Goodwitch hammering on their door in the middle of the night, and ordering them to be combat ready by the bullheads in fifteen minutes. After that, it was all a blur of confusion, exhaustion and finally anticipation. They were back in a Grimm infested forest, ready for anything and eager to kill monsters. Or whatever they were supposed to do.

Professor Goodwitch seemed much more micromanaging that usual, constantly reminding Nora to watch a little more to the left of the group, or scolding Jaune for his less than brisk pace. Jaune remembered that professor Goodwitch had given them more detail on the way to the Emerald Forest, as he tried to recall it, more came back to him. They were supposed to look for Russet, a third year student. Apparently he was separated from his team, and JNPR was going to help Goodwitch find him.

"Pyrrha, did you know Russet?" Jaune asked out of curiosity.

"The deer faunus in the third year? I really don't know much, the upperclassmen told me to avoid him."

"Same here. Say… was it something along the lines of 'At all costs.'?" Jaune asked.

"For me it was 'Like the plague.' Strange I think. We'll know why soon enough I guess."

Pyrrha had noticed that the Emerald Forest had a different atmosphere to it. The Grimm were still there, but nothing seemed to be drawing them in towards them. The cloudy night sky gave the forest a bleak look that she hadn't seen before. The air was still and hung close to them, even as wind gusted through the trees. She broke from her reverie when Nora called them. Apparently Goodwitch and Ren found something of interest.

"No, Ms. Valkyrie, Russet doesn't have a semblance that lets him fly. The foot prints disappear because he moved this way, over rocks and branches, not leaving prints in the ground. Team JNPR, gather around. We're moving that way." Without waiting, Goodwitch started to walk into the denser forest.

Pyrrha took her place a few meters ahead of the professor, who was in the center of the group, constantly glancing around her. Pyrrha continued ahead, a gap in the trees making a continuous path that occasionally twisted and turned, obscuring their view further. Eventually Pyrrha was able to see a clearing, only a few trees blocked her. As she stepped forward, something caught her eye. On one of the trees ringing the clearing, there were marks that shouldn't be there. As she drew closer, the marks resolved into deep gashes carved into the wood with a thick, but unquestionably sharp blade. She could make them out now.

 _Abhor the mutant._

Pyrrha almost stopped, the sheer bold and spiteful nature of the words giving her pause. But now she had a better view of the clearing, she could see a figure sat down, leant against a tree on the other side, antlers protruding from the silhouette's head. She strode forwards across the clearing. She had found Russet.

The grass was a soft green, gently glowing as the shadows of trees played across the clearing. Their lurid shapes elongated and turned as the wind wafted through, a gentle whistle accompanying the quite rustle of the leaves. The clouds parted, letting a silvery beam from the shattered moon bleach the far side of the clearing, illuminating her goal in a bleak light. The clouds passed back over, but she had seen all she needed. She came to a complete stop, nearly sagging to her knees. She heard a sharp inhalation behind her. Evidently her group found the message on the tree.

The grass beneath her was stained at their roots, the dark, rusty hue completely at odds with the pasty white complexion of the figure at the center of the murky red disk. The clouds parted again, now burning the glowing crimson oval on the ground into her mind. With a morbid curiosity, she let her gaze travel upwards towards Russet, still slumped against the tree.

Only to look away a moment later, as her eyes found a single long cut, carving his neck from ear to ear.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N**

 **Thank you all for the reviews. I had trouble thinking of where to lead the story, and the reviews were quite motivating. I can promise updates, but not regular ones. On that note, please send me a PM if you're interested in Beta reading. This chapter has been pretty much unchanged for a month, other than a few edits. A Beta reader might speed the process up.**

 **I hope you enjoy the direction I decided to take the story in.**

* * *

Jaune hated the nickname "vomit boy". Ever since that first day, whenever he looked the slightest bit nauseous everyone around him started grinning. Even his own team. It took him weeks to live it down. As he pushed through the bushes, all he could think about was keeping his bile down. He wouldn't be able to bear the shame of it again. He knew that he was fighting a futile battle; motion sickness was one thing, but corpses were another. He had no idea people had so much blood in them! And the mess didn't just fade and crumble the way it did with the Grimm, it stayed there forever.

Or did it?

Jaune was struck by an unusually metaphysical train of thought. Didn't people crumble and disappear after they were killed? Didn't it just take years instead of minutes? He thought it was one of the things that made Grimm monsters, just another unnatural property that further distanced them from real creatures, far in the realm of the whole seeks-negativity thing. But, at least it those terms, it meant that they were more similar to the Grimm than he thought. Uncomfortably so. In the end, their fates were the same, with only the sprawling magnitude of time differentiating them.

His thoughts were cut short by a particularly gut wrenching gag. That was it, he'd find a bush where no one would see him, and he could vomit without consequences. After finding a suitable place, he steadied himself against a tree, and began to calm his outraged stomach. Soon, the worst was over and the little beowolves had stopped dancing around his head. Taking deep breaths, he let himself catch up with what his senses were telling him.

The first thing that came to his mind was that the tree he was leaning against seemed too cold to be wood. The bark didn't have any raised edges, and the textures it did have were too regular to be natural. Normally a tree had some element of give to the wood, but the surface he was resting his hand on was unyielding against the pressure. He was just about to turn around as his aura took a massive blow, forcing his back up against what he now knew not to be a tree.

Still dazed from the first blow, he was helpless as something twisted around his neck; his aura buckling under the force. The pressure was ridiculous, it was like a hit from Cardin's hammer, only the force didn't stop. Finally his aura gave way, disappearing with a small hiss. Without anything to keep it at bay, the metallic loop around his neck tightened like a noose. Time seemed to slow down to a crawl, he could hear his heartbeat, a low thud of increasing urgency and decreasing frequency. The edges of his vision started turning black, the darkness creeping inwards with each passing moment. Black spilt across his vision like ink over paper. He could feel the coil around his throat make hundreds of micro-corrections every second, twisting with horrifying precision as it homed in ever closer to some optimal position.

Then, the pressure was gone. As suddenly as it started, the cold ring uncoiled itself from around his neck. Stumbling, he took in deep breaths, his head throbbing as blood forced its way back into vacated veins and capillaries. He blinked hard, as if it would let him regain his sight faster. As his vision returned, it brought back a chilling image. He saw a looming figure, its shadow pinning him in place. He saw the metal coil rejoining a collection of similar armored cords, swaying without wind. He saw glowing blue eyes high above his head, staring down at him.

* * *

When the boy had started moving towards his position, he thought he had made some fundamental mistake. He immediately checked everything that could have possibly compromised his stealth. Maybe there was a touch of color out of place, maybe his shadow didn't match his surroundings, or maybe an edge of his armor was overtly artificial against the lush forest. After a quick check, he could find nothing wrong with his technique. A Night Lord would be hard pressed to improve upon it. His augmetics informed him that his armor was emitting less random radiation than the trees around him. He had configured sections of his armor to emit electric fields to reduce the magnetic profile of his wargear. The rustle of wind through the leaves was a torrent of sound compared to his total aural output. For all intents and purposes, he should have been a black hole in the forest. No natural senses or auspex analogues on the planet should have been able to detect him there.

And yet the boy seemed to be homing straight onto his position.

The boy had a desperate edge to him, constantly checking the foliage around him, glancing back towards the clearing where his team was. As he drew closer, the legionnaire slid his combat blade out of its sheath, idly wondering if it would claim another life today. There was a tense moment as the boy stepped within arm's reach, and he held the combat blade poised, ready to bury it in the boy's heart.

The boy continued walking past him. The legionnaire sheathed the knife, slightly disappointed. He was half hoping the boy had some sort of witch sight, letting him commune with the soul of the mutant in order to seek out the legionnaire for vengeance. Now the boy walked away from him, but something at the back of the legionnaire's mind told him not to let him wander off in that direction.

Even as he remembered, the boy placed his hand against the doomsday pod's side. As the pod shifted slightly under the pressure, something dangerously close to panic gripped the legionnaire, his armor flooding his veins with bitingly cold combat stimulants in response. He sprang forwards, shattering rocks and roots beneath his heel. He intended for his first blow to connect with the boy's neck, but the boy unexpectedly straightened up at the last moment, since he was no longer expelling his stomach contents, and the strike fell across his shoulder.

The impact should have shattered most of the skeletal structure in that region. All the legionnaire got was a bright flash from where his gauntlet connected with the boy. Filing that away for later consideration, he looped a mechadendrite around his neck, preparing a crude garrote. Even then, a faint glow lit up under the mechadendrite, accompanied by a resistive force. A second later, the glow disappeared, and with it the resistance.

He started to finish the choke, but then he thought better of it. He was in the middle of breaking a pattern, why should he return to his previous modus operandi? He needed to get into contact with the wider civilization of this world, and it would be easiest to do so through Beacon. And here he had an affiliate of Beacon academy, who might actually be more useful lucid than unconscious. He had little reason to stay in the forest anymore. They had found his message. They knew that he wouldn't be trifled with. As he thought it over, it appealed to him. Breaking the pattern in two different ways: He killed one, and didn't even render the other unconscious. It was always amusing to see how someone would react to a sudden, drastic change in their perception of reality.

He withdrew the mechadendrite and let the boy pull himself together. The legionnaire wasn't pleased that the doomsday pod was found, even accidentally, but no one needed to know what it was. When the boy seemed to have reached the perfect balance of intimidated, and still disoriented from blood-oxygen deprivation, he decided to begin.

"What is your name, boy?" The boy in question seemed like he needed a combat stim _yesterday_. Or at least a dose of caffeine. Anything to stop him from looking like a shell shocked guardsman. Either way, he was still able to form a satisfactory answer.

"Jaune." It seemed a simple enough handle, suited to the boy by the legionnaire's reckoning. Now they needed something else to say. Seeing that the auspex informed him that the rest of his group was still in the clearing, he decided to sate his curiosity. He had seen that same flash of light, and the same mysterious resistance so many times when he counter-hunted search parties, but they never seemed to amount to what the boy had demonstrated.

"Tell me Jaune, before everything started to go grey around the edges, what was that…barrier… that shielded you? And why was it considerably stronger than other's?"

Within the first minute the legionnaire regretted asking. By the second minute the blabbering had gotten to the point of mildly impressive. Jaune clearly didn't know that his life had been spared, and was still in the process of bargaining for it, unconsciously or not. Normally, such behavior would have irritated the legionnaire; he had asked a question and wanted answers, not a life story. Perhaps it was amusing because the boy managed to do both at the same time. He was rambling, but not incoherent. It was like he had no filter on his thoughts; they went straight from his mind to his tongue. Jaune was making quite the spectacle of himself. The legionnaire was surprised no one else heard the noise yet.

By now Jaune was speaking in circles, regurgitating the same information over and over again in different contexts. The legionnaire contemplated the situation. He needed to get to Beacon, and here was a representative of that institution, even if he was lower down the metaphorical food chain. He was also tiring of the forest, and while it was difficult to admit, his impatience was driving him towards quicker solutions. He would fix that at Beacon, but for now he would use a short cut, as ungraceful as it may be.

"…Even though Pyrrha told me that I had a lot of aura reserves it hasn't helped me, I mean, maybe it does help, but I take more hits than everyone else so it gets used up faster, but another idea I had was that I'm not using it well enough, and it's wasted on me, or I have lots of reserves, but I can't call on them, which made me think-."

"Silence now." Jaune's stammering trailed off before stopping completely. Jaune shuffled back a little, before bumping into the plasteel frame of the doomsday pod.

"I must say, Jaune, that your eloquence impresses me." Jaune stared back at him uncertainly.

"In fact, one might say that you disarm me with it." With that the legionnaire pulled his combat blade out of its sheath, and held the hilt out towards the boy. He needed to build up a sense of security if he was going to go through with this. If Jaune had half the wits of an Ogryn, he would be able to tell it was the weapon that killed the mutant; the edge was still slick with blood. Additionally, the legionnaire didn't mind surrendering it; it had barely a century of service to it, and it was a fairly standard thing on top of that.

It would be a different story altogether if they wanted his storm bolter.

"What?" Jaune held the combat blade limply. The blade was almost half the length of the boy's own sword, and considerably wider.

"You have managed to do single handedly what dozens of others from Beacon failed." The legionnaire wondered if Jaune even registered his voice. He took a step backwards, holding his arms out to his sides. He partially retracted his mechadendrites to present a more human profile.

"I've what?"

The legionnaire sighed. The boy was showing the initiative of a grox.

"You've found me. Pass the information up your chain of command." With that, realization seemed to dawn of Jaune's face. He started glancing around, mostly to where he had come from. The legionnaire heard him say something along the lines of _'Of course I get stuck with a murderer in the forest…'_ Jaune started walking around, examining the ground. The legionnaire took the opportunity to check his auspex; the group was finally looking for him.

"Do you need to know where your group is?" Jaune looked up from his attempts to retrace his steps, propping the heavy blade up against a tree. While Jaune seemed resigned to the likelihood of failure, he seemed ready to give it his best shot anyway. His eyes also had a defiant edge that they previously lacked.

"I just started looking for my tracks, alright? I'm sure I'll find some, so just humor me for a little while."

The legionnaire tilted his helm slightly. Evidently he misread the boy. Give him a little responsibility and confidence, and suddenly he was brave enough to reply in such a manner. Interesting. Still, there was much to be said about his tracking skills. Jaune kept searching and stumbling around before he eventually tripped over a root in the dark. At that point he gave up.

"Alright." Jaune groaned as he picked himself up. "Where are they?"

"Fifty meters to the south-south east."

"Yeah… I don't have a compass." While adequate knowledge of the celestial bodies in this system would solve the boy's problem, the legionnaire kept that sentiment to himself. Instead he resorted to a hand gesture.

"Fifty meters _that way_."

"Ah. Ok. Alright then." Jaune looked back at him, eyebrows drawn together. "You won't run will you?"

That was a bit too far. The legionnaire took the opportunity to reassert the true power dynamic between them.

"If the group isn't here within two minutes, you'll be the one running."

Jaune backed up a little, almost tripped on another root, then took off into the trees. The legionnaire sighed again, his gauntlet coming up to meet his faceplate for a moment. He reconfigured his vox to project at a much higher amplitude, and called out towards Jaune.

"The opposite direction!"

* * *

Ozpin entered his office, and found the senior staff of Beacon waiting for him, just as he asked. Their dedication comforted him, since it had been almost five hours since Glynda and JNPR had brought Alpharius into Beacon. He had just come out of the most infuriating, confusing and downright weird conversations he had just had in his life. If it could have been called a conversation at all.

Retrospectively, the start of it had foreshadowed it all. He went into the room, with a plan to unravel a mystery, and the intention to see it through to the end. He decided to start with an expectant silence, not regarding Alpharius at all, and letting him be the first one to speak. It was essentially interrogational siege tactics; letting the subject stew in their anxiety and guilt while he got to sip coffee and catch up on administration. It was a technique that unnerved gangsters, bandits, corrupt officials and unruly students without fail.

Alpharius had tripled the record, maintaining the silence for a half hour, and the record breaking run only ended there because Ozpin decided to speak first after all.

"My colleagues, my friends. I have spoken to Alpharius. We managed to come to, for lack of a better word, an arrangement." A variety of expectant and confused looks greeted that declaration. He decided to take that as an opportunity to sit down in his chair, and pour himself some stale coffee. Bartholomew was the first to speak up.

"An arrangement? Wasn't a student killed? Aren't we obligated to take punitive, if not retaliatory, action against him?" Ozpin blinked at Bartholomew. If he spent hours in alone in a room with Alpharius, he would see the uselessness of 'punitive action'. He decided to elaborate.

"The closest thing I can describe it to is just that. An arrangement. He will not commit atrocities, and he will inform us of his activities, in person, on a biweekly schedule. In exchange we will not harry or otherwise interfere with him unless he breaches the aforementioned conditions." There it was, all out in one go, and nearly word for word to what they agreed on.

It seemed like most of the staff didn't like it. Completely expected, and reasonable by Ozpin's reckoning.

"That's it?! Didn't you see the footage I sent back from the clearing? Has he denied it? Has he shown remorse?"

Ozpin was starting to think that the coffee wasn't the right drink for the occasion. Remorse? Alpharius showed nothing of the sort. He could hear Alpharius' exact words in his head. _Mutants are a burden on humanity. Liberating it of its sorry existence the most I could have deigned to do. The galaxy is a better place for my deed._ Ozpin drained his mug. It took a while to explain to Alpharius that Faunus were a different species altogether, and even then Alpharius seemed dubious. None of the staff seemed satisfied with his account.

"It was a tragedy, a crime even. But I think that there are mitigating circumstances." Everyone in the room started talking over the other. He grimaced behind his mug. He sympathized with them; he had felt the same way before he was simply exhausted by the situation. But what more could he have done?

"-circumstances for murder?"

"-just a crime?!-"

Ozpin decided to come clean with them.

"This isn't just about a random killer in the forest. This isn't just about finding information. He comes from a society capable of space flight."

That silenced the room. Until Bartholomew spoke up.

"That's impossible, dust's efficacy diminishes catastrophically even before leaving the atmosphere!"

"Apparently they utilize technology that isn't based on dust."

"Dust has the greatest energy density of all known substances! It can't be done!" Disregarding Bartholomew's protests, Ozpin turned to Glynda, and gestured behind him as he knocked back another mug of coffee.

"Glynda, do you remember the sight that started this whole thing to begin with?" Her emerald eyes passed over the window, and widened.

"The fireworks?"

"Apparently, those 'fireworks' are now in orbit." The entire group blanched at the thought. Ozpin decided to take advantage of the quiet.

"That is but one of several mitigating circumstances. In light of this, surely we can afford him some leeway, when the potential outcome is cooperation, and the possibility of sharing of his technology. Consider the potential benefits for Remnant." Bartholomew looked back at him, speaking in an uncharacteristically low tone.

"Leeway? Murder is murder, Ozpin. The hatred in that message was clear."

Glynda spoke after him.

"It was a student he killed, Ozpin."

Ozpin remembered raising almost the exact same point with Alpharius. Alpharius had refused to take off his helmet, but Ozpin remembered slowly beginning to think that he could make out expressions and emotions in that cold metallic mask. His voice came out of the speaker grill where ventilation holes would normally be in a helmet. When combined with the piercing gaze of the mismatched eyes, Alpharius maintained a permanent commanding expression of mild disinterest. Yet, the minutest changes in body language seemed to be able to convey a disturbing amount of information in conjunction with his eye lenses.

He remembered how they stared at him, how they seemed to lack a certain quality fundamental to human emotion. They measured him. They appraised him. Ozpin had felt himself being worked over and inspected by those eyes, in a cold quantification of his very being. Alpharius just said: ' _You don't mourn him.'_ No malice, no accusation, simply a statement of fact. The truth in it was crushing. They said no more about Russet after that.

"What can we do? Hmm? We can't hand him over to the justice system in Vale, even at Beacon we are beyond their jurisdiction, much less the Emerald Forest. And if we take steps to have him tried, we could compromise the independence from the council that our predecessors fought so very hard to secure. Even if we did turn him over, what if he refused to comply? Are we to let him loose on Vale, without any monitoring? When everything is coming to a boil?"

Ozpin could see that he was starting to reach his colleagues, he could see them wrestling with the decision he had already made for them.

"Glynda, Bartholomew, Peter. I truly understand you, I understand your premises and moral values. I share them." The three in question seemed thrown by this new line of discussion.

"But you don't understand what Alpharius values, what he considers right or wrong. Neither do I. No one on Remnant could. But therein lies his justification. When we talked, he told me of an enormous cosmos, full of worlds and life. He told me of cities that spanned across continents, he spoke of starships the size of Vale. He could talk about planets that were paradises and ones that were slices of hell."

Ozpin mentioned nothing about how he had been forced to give up information about Remnant, Vale, and Beacon in exchange. Alpharius chose to exchange exceedingly general points for extremely precise and calculated ones. Ozpin knew what was happening, but he couldn't help but let his curiosity get the better of him at the time. Still, he realized that this dealing had been unintentional and one-sided. Perhaps that would change, as they got to know Alpharius better.

The early morning sky still held some stars, their brightness slowly overwhelmed as the sun rose and bleached the air with light. Ozpin turned in his chair and gestured towards them.

"Every point of light there could hold a world, and yet we would still only see a fraction of what's out there. He also told me that it was a harsh place, where other life is almost always hostile to humanity. From what I understand, he was required to combat those dangers, the same way hunters combat the Grimm. For all we know, killing the inhuman could be a norm to him, a survival instinct almost."

"While I will certainly proceed with my chosen course of action, I want you to comprehend me even if you won't support me. I think that it would be wrong to cut ourselves off from the vastness of the universe because of this. I want to give Alpharius a chance, in exchange for the chances he would bring us. I value your judgment even if it differs from mine. So please, tell me your thoughts."

They all looked nearly as drained, stressed and tired as he did now. Nearly, but not quite. Ozpin smiled humorlessly; they were starting to share his suffering. Glynda decided to speak first.

"I'm torn. I understand where you are coming from, and the basis of your argument. But you are asking me to make the choice between my obligations as a teacher and a Huntress, and the possibility that Alpharius will cooperate with anyone."

"The possibility is too great for Remnant to pass up, Glynda. This choice is for the world, not for Beacon."

"Let me finish Ozpin. I just need to voice my concerns. If we're ready to overlook this death in prospect of what he might share with us, what will we overlook next? Another body? Two more? Why not five, then? We can't let this promise hang over our heads, ransoming this future at the cost of our souls."

"This is a slippery slope that you are leading us onto Ozpin. But I understand the magnitude of this, and whatever's to come. I really hope that this was all some horrible misunderstanding. So, yes Ozpin. I'll follow your lead, wherever it takes us."

Bartholomew seemed a little fazed, not willing to even attempt to match that.

"I'm afraid I'll have to be a little more concise than Glynda. Assuming that you're right about him, and that he really is from another world, I can see reason to ere on the side of caution with him. I'd despise working with someone who would deal death so lightly, yet I also anticipate whatever this could bring us. I might not be satisfied with the situation right now, but out of hope for a better future, you have my support." Ozpin turned to Peter, who had remained ramrod straight for almost the entire time.

"Well Peter? You haven't said much so far. We won't begrudge you if you refuse me." Peter seemed to consider this.

"I think Barty forgot that we haven't seen Alpharius in person yet. I'll back you up Ozpin, but I think that I'll need to look him in the eye before I pass my own judgment.

"Fine words Peter, fine words." Tension seemed to drain out of the room, now that their crisis was averted, or at least put off until later. Even the coffee seemed to have improved. There was always an odd moment after meetings like these. After discussing a matter of such importance, it was always surprising to see the rest of the world remain constant after such a seemingly significant choice.

Glynda suddenly frowned while checking her scroll.

"Ozpin, where did you leave him?"

"Interview room two, I believe." She flipped over her scroll, with multiple security camera feeds displayed on it. The scroll shook under her tightening grip.

"The interview rooms are all empty and open."

* * *

It is often said that a space marine's mind is a fortress.

It couldn't have been any more true for Amadeus.

Even unbound by the laws and constraints of the materium, his mindscape took the form of a sprawling bastion. As it drifted through an infinite void, the cliff faces of the walls parted dark ashy clouds. Crenellated towers rose at regular intervals, standing guard to a yet mightier citadel of gold and adamantium. The entire complex was studded with bombardment cannons, reliquaries, macro-cannon batteries, statues, embrasures, and flowing banners.

It was a monument to siegecraft, an exemplar of Dorn's genius, a symbol of defiance and righteousness in the face of evil. It should have been invincible. It should have annihilated anything that dared creep under the stare of its guns. As it floated through Amadeus' mindscape, it should have been impregnable.

And yet it burned.

Where proud standards once flew, smoking tatters hung. Where weapons would once drown out the death screams of stars, there was only the hiss of melting barrels. Where fortifications once stood, shattered rubble remained.

Where there was once quiet, discipline, and uniformity, four malign entities ran amok. Before the fortress was reduced to the state it was in, the four of them worked together to overcome it. Now that there was little left but cinders, they bickered and fought. Separated.

One sped through the ancient armories with a rage like no other, rending apart memories of battles and flooding them with blood lust. One paced around the citadel indecisively, plotting the most convoluted route to maximize its gains, and constantly changing direction as it found new, thoughts to peel open and plunder. One plodded across the outer trenches, thinking only of spreading his corruption, and granting recollections of suffering an undying eternity. The final one pranced within the hallowed reliquaries, seeking to inflate long remembered traditions and honors with the most intense of stimulations.

Amadeus normally could never perceive the fortress of his mind so keenly, but as his body grew cold and catatonic in its forced slumber, his comatose state let him vividly visualize the metaphor of his consciousness and life. The entities' actions had forced him to barricade himself into a tiny corner of the fortress, a small room barely worth any note at all.

The room seemed unstable in its existence; sometimes it was a serf's quarters, other times it was a storage room connected the first Reclusiam he had maintained. The changes only seemed to happen outside his perception, and would only be registered minutes after the fact. The only constants in the room were the wooden door, the votive candles he had set up beneath Dorn's heraldry, and the last of his chapter's colors. And a weapon case.

Inside the room, his sanity, memory, and sense of self could weather the worst of the invaders' ministrations. They were chasing shadows of his true memories, and Amadeus let the room dull the effects to a migraine instead of a soul rending storm.

 _That's probably my influence shielding you, as well as the room._

Amadeus looked away from the torn banner he was repairing towards the weapons case. He had hoped the four invaders would have gotten rid of that malign infestation during their assault. The case had grown quiet ever since the first wall was breached, and he assumed, no, hoped that their rival was slain.

 _You're bound to me, even if it was a botched and unfinished job. Your consciousness is fixed to mine; we must both be destroyed if we are to fade._

The voice came from everywhere: the walls, the door, the banner in his hands, even from his own mouth. Yet some sixth sense told him that it originated from the case. Its tone was inhuman, disembodied, and seemed to make everything ring faintly when it spoke. Somehow through that, he could make out the smugness in the feminine tone. He despised it more than the warp spawn outside.

 _Come now Amadeus. Truly you know that you're far better off with me. Even though we daemons are immortal, most of us are rather fleeting creatures. If you let them in here instead of me, they would leave you a desiccated husk, burst apart in a frenzy of emotion. Those minnows don't understand the glamor, the elegance, and the power that one attains from gaining possession in the most perfect way._

Amadeus placed the banner back on its stand and moved in front of the case. The daemon _wasn't_ blood bound to him. It _didn't_ happen. It _couldn't_ have. An Astartes would _never_ prostrate himself to a daemoness. It was clearly over confident; if those other daemons were indeed petty in comparison, then surely it wouldn't have been overcome in the first place.

 _Perhaps my hubris got the better of me. Perhaps I let my guard down. It won't happen again, especially now that we have the drop on them._

The daemoness' voice turned from wistful to mocking.

 _Worry not Amadeus, I'm obligated to win back by plaything's mind._

With that, a silvery light started to boil out of the case, pushing the lid upwards and outwards. The misty beams seemed to have a life of their own, the roiling mass stretching outwards. On an instinct, Amadeus slammed the lid shut, using his entire strength to keep it closed. Only the smallest sliver of light leaked out. The daemoness seemed unperturbed.

 _Must you resist me at every possible moment? Is it your innate stubbornness? You've come this far, wouldn't it be simpler to just let go of your inhibitions? Do you not remember where they brought you? I will show you if I must._

The daemoness' voice stayed calm, consigning Amadeus to plunge inwards in a whirlpool of memories.

* * *

The daemoness had cast him back into one of his most deeply buried memories. Amadeus recognized the memory. It was the first time he had ever seen the fortress of his psyche, and yet he knew its every corridor, arc of fire, and wall as if it were the Phalanx itself. He recalled this memory as the last time he stood atop the command pulpit of the bastion.

He also remembered shattered fragments of where he was in real space at the same time. He remembered the bitterness of defeat. The shame of immobility and capture. He remembered the smell of burning flesh, and a dark ritual circle lorded over by a sorcerer. He remembered seeing his blood fill up the recesses made by the crazed patterns cut into the ground, spreading outwards through the miniature canals in an insane web of crimson. He remembered a mysterious object at the center of the circle, crackling and hissing as warp tainted chains bound it to the ground.

He remembered something else: his blood climbing up the chains. At times the red river would lift off the corrupt surface of the chains, or simply course forwards as a viscous vapor between the links. He remembered the chains dropping away as they grew heavy with the weight of his soul, revealing the surface of an instrument of destruction, the strings humming slow, eerie notes as the red slicked surface drank in his ichor.

In his mindscape this arcane ritual was represented by a glowing mist, pouring into the ashy sky from an unknown plane of existence as the daemoness entered his mind. It was like watching promethium spilt into an ocean, an abstract cloud that was suffocatingly iridescent. Even as the mist remained formless, he could feel its gaze travel over the fortress with unmistakable intent. It was the intent to subjugate, vanquish and conquer. It was the intent to overthrow and control.

Amadeus refused to let it. In tandem with his thoughts, the myriad turrets and emplacements turned their yawning barrels towards the sky. Amadeus let loose their fury without hesitation. Thousands of fixed weapons let loose a deafening roar, painting the sky white and red with the intensity of their firepower, burning hot enough to pull the very bonds of molecules apart. That was a mere instant before the mightiest guns could give voice. As they discharged, they howled apocalyptic funeral tolls, launching shells capable of shattering mountains. As the warheads burst in the air, the sheer magnitude of the explosions left pressure lenses in the air for seconds on end.

The daemoness cared not. It shot towards the walls at a sickening speed, turning fire and hot plasma into its playthings as they whipped through the sentient mist. They melded into a single blur, mixing and distorting faster and faster until they were invisible against the reflective cloud of the daemon. It slid off and between explosions like water through pebbles. The cloud began to turn into a bright beam of light, condensing down into a single flash.

The light kept accelerating, spearing unerringly towards the pulpit where Amadeus stood. As the beam flew over the battlements, Amadeus could hear a light hearted laugh of perfect content.

Amadeus could see his fate all too clearly. He could foresee the tragedy about to creep in to his existence.

He didn't know what exactly would happen to him, but he knew he would be changed forever. Within the coldness of his mind, there would be no savior for him. He was confined within the void, helpless in the face of the horror. Yet, even as the marble doors to the pulpit were thrown open, he stood tall against the intruder. He was prepared to be a twisted puppet of hatred, to be cursed with possession, and burdened forever by the pain of failure. But he would meet this end with the fortitude of a scion of Dorn.

The silvery light now took a humanoid form, and walked up to him with breathtaking confidence. The daemoness' face seemed to drift and change as he tried to make it out, but the disembodied voice remained the same.

 _Anything to say before your will is subservient to mine?_

There was no gloating in the tone, only an honest curiosity. Amadeus was struck by a sudden moment of candor. The humorless laugh he let out was nearly a sigh.

 _I didn't expect it to end this way._

The unblemished curves of light that passed for the daemoness' face morphed into a sublime expression of interest.

 _And what did you expect, Amadeus?_

He could have told her. The Imperial Navy's usual overeager orbital bombardment. Locked in combat with a daemon prince. Annihilated by an Eldar titan. He could have told her anyone of the thousand fates he had imagined. But time had come to honor Dorn, and to continue the millennia old tradition of impossible death oaths.

 _Next time we both stand here, I shall reign sovereign over my mind._

A hand of glowing mist reached out towards him, before pausing, and slowly returning back to the figure's side. The face now was one of unparalleled elegance, the inhumanly perfect features displaying an exquisite expression of distant delight.

 _So full of hate… so full of pride. Perfect. I wasn't expecting it, but you will do nicely._

The hand rose back up, touching the side of his head ever so lightly, nearly in a caress. He could feel himself paralyzed and frozen, in body and mind. He could feel his soul almost shattering, being prepared to be smelted and re-forged into something that would never truly be himself. He felt the daemoness' essence unwinding alongside his, roaming into dark shadows where his wouldn't dare. His mind was slowly filled to the brim with scenes of stunning mayhem and discord, never giving him relief from the nightmare made flesh.

He saw his soul spill out of himself, the monochromatic colors of his being intertwining with the lurid, florescent warp matter flowing out of the daemoness.

Just as he felt the very last strands of his sanity and sense of self almost break, an unprecedented thud permeated the fortress, crushing and shattering the web connecting Amadeus to the daemoness.

* * *

Amadeus' eyes shot back open within the darkness of the room. He had fallen backwards, away from the weapon case. It was now fully open, revealing the instrument of chaos in all its vile splendor.

The daemoness was nearly at the door. On a sudden urge, he sprang up and grabbed at the silvery mist. Somehow, his grip found purchase on the vapor. The daemoness took its preferred form again, and Amadeus found himself grasping a wrist. He was disgusted by the daemoness; it dared imitate the human figure, sullying the purity of flesh and form.

Their eyes locked, revealing the inhuman orbs that it possessed in place of true eyes. They were mirrored balls, with cracks weaving their way across the surfaces, splitting his reflection into dozens of minutely different copies.

 _Let me outside of this room Amadeus. You can't think that this door will keep them out forever. I'll confront them eventually, so don't you want it to be on our terms? Surely you deserve a place in the citadel of your own mind?_

His grip remained locked tight. He knew that he shouldn't try to comprehend the daemoness, but he couldn't help but wonder: He knew it could break free of his grip at any moment, and overpower him as it did in the memory. Why wasn't it?

 _Release me. Let me loose upon them. Let me devour their essences as they would yours, little more could satisfy me. Worry not about me; these minions of the four have neither the flexibility nor the magnitude to claim victory against me._

His hand shifted around her- no, _its_ wrist. He shouldn't let himself collude with warp spawn, even against its own kin.

 _I shall sing them a song of cataclysm, a ballad to their doom. Not even their names shall live on in the warp. Just give me that chance. Think about it Amadeus, if you don't dare make a stand here, will you ever?_

Her words were quoted directly from his mentor, before he attained his chaplaincy. His grip buckled for an instant. While he was certain her psychic influence played a part in it, but he could only blame himself of that moment's laxity. That instant was all she wanted and needed from him. In that instant, he released the daemoness.

The wooden door was thrown open, and a mere moment later four thunderous cracks accompanied the sudden appearance of four malevolent shadows, drawn instantly to what they sensed as weakness. Amadeus darted for a weapon inside the room, leaving the daemoness in between him and the door. He had turned his back, and was grasping the repaired banner when the noise began.

There were the sounds he recognized: the crunch of failed armor, the wet sucking of a freshly opened wound, the empty shriek of a blade cutting only air, and the hiss of warp fire. Then there were the sounds he couldn't name, nor recognize.

They were harsh flanging sounds, echoing oddly within the room. They carried a strange significance that the others failed to, emoting outrage, disappointment, frustration, and fear with uncanny precision. The sounds echoed only within his mind. He realized it was the sound of daemons dying. The daemons weren't simply facing banishment from the material realm; they were fighting for their existences.

There was also the music. He had never felt anything like it, nothing could match the sheer dynamism and power that it carried. It followed an incomprehensibly rapid beat, permeating his chest, forcing his heart to beat in synchrony. The volume of it created visible standing waves in the air. It melody morphed and twisted itself constantly, ripping chords of sorrow, loss, and hopelessness across him. He could feel the music start to fray the edges of his soul, tearing at his very being with a deranged beauty.

And just as soon as it all started, it was over.

As Amadeus turned around he saw the daemoness' figure. Now she seemed a mixture between a shimmering light and a ghastly cloud of warp stuff. Even as she filled the hall as a mist of mirror shards, the daemoness retained her air of certainty and arrogance. The shards swam in chaotic schools of jagged daggers, shedding reflected light in a gristly light show.

The four other daemons, once manifestations of horror and sin incarnate, were torn asunder, their remains spread across the floor and walls. The daemoness started exuding psychic pulses of conflicting expressions of satisfaction and desire. A malevolent glow pushed at the space around her, pulling bright pieces of warp stuff away from the cadavers of the lesser daemons. Each piece that left them gave off an inhuman scream of despair, and as they were lifted towards the daemoness with an increasing frequency, the room was soon filled with the noise. The glow grew stronger with each piece pulled from the daemons, and kept brightening until the final miniature star flew into the hurricane of light and un-life.

Then it stopped. The daemoness was gone from sight, even if he could still feel her presence in the deepest depths of his perception. He looked out the wooden doorway, and stepped over the threshold. As he started making his way through the halls, he saw that everything was back in perfect repair. Even the tear in the banner he held had disappeared, leaving him to pull out the now redundant string he had repaired it with.

The fortress was fundamentally changed, as if it were touched by a clandestine presence. It was as if everything was being puppeted, sending his every command elsewhere to be verified before executing them. Blast doors hesitated minutely longer than they should have before opening. The turrets and emplacements responded and rotated slightly more slowly than they should have. Even as he released the loose string from the banner, it took a perceivable moment for gravity to start pulling it downwards.

He climbed the steps to the command pulpit, and found a new door leading off to the side, into a tower that hadn't been in the citadel before. The door was locked, the keyhole centered in the grey metallic surface of the door. On an urge, he reached out and tested the handle.

The door's surface turned into a perfect mirror, the previous grey receding to the edges of the door. A moment later, cracks spiraled out from under his grip, slowly creeping their way across the entire surface of the door. As he removed his hand the cracks receded, and the door slowly returned to the dull grey it was before.

Then he heard the daemoness' voice again, only this time it had a richer, more satisfied quality to it. As if it had gained sustenance after an eternity of starvation. Amadeus felt a chill run down his spine as he heard its warm, gratified tone.

 _I think that we'll get out of here soon Amadeus._

* * *

The legionnaire decided that the archive would have to do.

Of course, the signage named the place a library, but he had yet to see any reading material that had anything to do with the Warp. The distinction would have been more important to him on any other world, but he supposed that Remnant could be cut some slack. After the ridiculous scrounging for information he had to do the forest, finding the accessibility of the library was like coming across an oasis on Tallarn. After familiarizing himself with the manner in which the codices were organized, he started looking for compendiums of knowledge, something to give himself a much more detailed, insightful view of Remnant.

He had already gone through several more general texts, and each hadn't failed to surprise him. For one, Remnant believed in a society bound by egalitarian morals and justice.

Shocking.

The legionnaire knew that they did occasionally occur, but more often than not they formed in garden worlds, or wealthy and peaceful civilized worlds. And therein was his reason for surprise. Remnant shouldn't have formed that type of society.

It would be difficult to classify Remnant under the normal world types. The technological level was probably worthy of an advanced industrial world, with several space grade inventions. While it was difficult to see how the tiny population would be counter-balanced by their technological advancement, Remnant would probably have reached a low to average tithe grade if it was left to Imperial control, though he would take what actions he could to keep Remnant for the Legion.

Then there was the problem of the Grimm. While he wasn't too impressed by the creatures, having mistaken them for regular fauna at first, he could see how they might pose problems to a growing society, especially after seeing their documented feats. For that reason, it would be arguable that Remnant should be classified as death world. While the forests didn't hold a candle to the jungles of Catachan, the records did indicate that the Grimm were capable of overrunning respectably sized settlements. The closest approximation he could come up with was a somewhat troublesome Ork infestation. That just never happened to get any meks.

Going back to the matter at hand, Remnant shouldn't have achieved the government it had. Most worlds in these circumstances would turn to authoritarianism, or some semblance of a strong state. He found that nothing on Remnant quite made that cut. Admittedly, the northern-most kingdom had made a half-hearted attempt, but it was nothing close to the norm. It needed to be a state that had a clear cut political line, and pursued it uncompromisingly and expected its citizens to do the same. Which led him onto the Faunus.

Perhaps he had made a mistake, letting his nostalgia for the Great Crusade fill him so. But he had to admit that was catharsis to kill something like that. His work for the Legion rarely gave him the freedom to kill in so liberally, as well as his standard regulations of conduct. In light of the recent events, he was forced to recall that those restrictions existed for good reason.

In hindsight, maybe a more conservative approach was the wiser choice in those circumstances. Ozpin gave him far too much tedium for a single death. Though it was amusing to see Ozpin put up with his stonewalling, Ozpin had seemed particularly keen on his motives for killing the thing, especially discrimination. A ridiculous suspicion. While the legionnaire admitted to himself (and only himself) that the mutations or disfigurements expedited his action, he still maintained that he mostly wanted to cause a commotion, and thus get Ozpin and his staff to evaluate him differently.

Regardless of what his motives were, it did bring up an interesting link to his previous train of thought. Normally, most worlds that gained large, similar groups of mutants did only one of two things: accept them as full members of society and the workforce from the very beginning (granting them the softer title of 'abhuman' in the wider imperium), or purge them entirely (either by military force or an efficient health system).

Very few worlds followed the path that Remnant took, but those that did ended up in the same situation as the one here: an awkward half-hearted hatred within one section of population, and another section that was too politically apathetic to care. That led to the radicalization of small mutant groups in an attempt to move the slowly shifting acceptance along faster, which almost always resulted in greater disrepute for the mutants as a whole, trapping them all in a pathetic loop of inaction.

The Legionnaire knew that these thought experiments were all well and fun, but he wanted to apply it in a way that would benefit the Legion. The world was obviously discontent with itself, but how could he use that? He knew that the ultimate end game was absolute control of Remnant, but how would he achieve it?

A Chaos cult was out of the question. While they could so often spread like warp-fire, they were far more useful for breaking a world apart, not annexing one. Besides, he had a propensity to avoid them. While he respected his fellow legionnaires that made more extensive use of the ruinous powers, he considered it counter-productive to the ultimate directive and goal of the Legion.

Surely there was something he could find. Surely there was some space marine shaped hole in the socio-political sphere of Remnant that he could fill.

He finally found the collection he was looking for: Remnant's greatest compendium of knowledge. Something in the forty six volumes before him might give him his answer. He pulled them off the shelf, frowning as the dust coating the surfaces billowed towards him. He walked towards a table, managing to carry the entire stack with the assistance of his mechadendrites. The table was too low for him, but he decided that it would have to suffice.

As the stack hit the surface, he heard a rattling noise. The Legionnaire looked down, and saw a small, colorful cardboard box that narrowly escaped being crushed by the weight of knowledge. He regarded it for a moment, and then picked up the first book.

His augmetics as well as the logic engine within his armor let him go through the book at a significant speed. The logic engine read the images fed to it by his augmetic eye, and stored it as data, pre-labeled, organized, and encrypted for later perusal. If a certain section caught his interest, he could simply call up an image of the page, superimpose that onto his vision, and let the logic engine continue its work as he flipped through page after page of the book.

It was a peaceful thing for him, much less turbulent than the nonsense he had been required to do in the forest. It was a quiet time of purpose, where he could spin out plans as he went along, and discard them just as soon as he found something that would send them to ruin.

For a fleeting moment he wondered if the students of Beacon found the library as useful as he did.

* * *

"We really should have just left it in our room."

Yang couldn't believe Weiss was still complaining.

"Come on, we're almost back! Can't you just leave it at that?"

Weiss tossed her hair, but she kept walking with the rest of her team through the library.

"I still maintain that we could have worked out a system with the six sided dice we already had."

"You just have to suck the fun out of everything don't you? It wouldn't be the same; Remnant needs a twenty sided die. Am I right Ruby?"

A pair of lilac and pale blue eyes flicked towards their leader. Both owners of those eyes sighed when they saw that Ruby was a little distracted.

"Really Blake, it's really easy to learn! Just give it a go, I promise you'll like it."

"I'm sorry, but I got a little confused when you started explaining the rules to me Ruby. And to me, the twenty sided die isn't a good omen."

"Why does everyone have a problem with it?" Yang cut in, "First, Weiss here decides that it is too much trouble to walk up a few floors for, and now Blake doesn't want to play because of it?"

"We're almost back to our table, I sure everything will be fine once we- "Ruby was cut off as she piled into Blake, who had stopped dead in her tracks. "What's wrong?"

Blake shuffled to the side so that the rest of RWBY could see the problem.

"It looks our table is taken."

"Ha! I predicted that the trip up to our room would cost us precious time, and now…" Weiss' victorious declaration trailed off as she saw just what was occupying their table.

The high arched ceilings of the library always had an oppressive tone to them when the library was emptier. The monolithic columns stood like honor guards at a funeral, their blank uniformity and size underscored by the regimented rows of shelves illuminated in the sterile glow of electric lights. The most recent generation of staff had attempted to cheer the place up, trying to counteract the pallid cream walls with dark red and maroon hues on the pillars. Letting in some natural light also helped open up the massive room, and reduce its suppressive atmosphere. The solemnity of the building was muffled, but wasn't entirely hidden. Walking into it felt like watching a gargantuan shadow move through deep, dark water on the open ocean.

Every now and then, something would bring the somber weight of history in the building to the surface, overturning months of meticulous decorating and renovation. Sometimes, the gaudy illusion was stripped away completely, leaving the harsh architecture plain. The person they set their eyes on was the only person that could do it with their mere presence. As they contemplated the dark, looming figure standing at the table, the entire team descended into a silence. Blake was the first to voice their shared question.

"Who is that?" Blake leaned towards Weiss, continuing her question. "Is that something new from Atlas?"

"I'm somehow supposed to know about all their latest projects?" Three expectant gazes continued to face her. Weiss sighed, resigned to her fate in the group.

"Well… Those aren't Atlas markings, and in fact, I don't recognize them at all. The armor looks like it should have someone inside it, but you never know." Weiss sub-consciously traced the scar covering her left eye.

"Alright then, but what do we do?" Yang asked uncertainly, "The game box is still on the table."

"And what looks like every single volume of _Encylcopedia Mistralia_." Blake was speaking in an awed voice, hushed in respect for a superior bibliophile.

Her comment drew their attention to the table. There were several stacks of books, some rising higher than their heads. The person in the armor was flicking through one at a rapid, yet methodical pace. As he flicked over to the last page of the one he was holding, he put it down on top of a pile to his left, picked up another from a different pile, and started over with that book.

But he only used his hands to hold the book he was reading. When he put down or picked up a book, he handed them off to the six robotic arms that flowed out from behind him. Each one seemed to have tens, if not hundreds of segments, each encased in odd metallic plating.

Which drew their attention back to the person in question. He seemed oddly out of place, as if he inserted into the world with little thought for compatibility. Like someone splicing a concrete building into a painting of the Forever Fall Forest. Ruby didn't like how her team had gotten quiet and skittish. She decided that it was her job as leader to take charge of the situation. Seeing that the only other tables available were either too small for her team, or in questionable condition, she saw only one course of action.

"The box was on the table when we left, I'm sure he'd understand if I ask him to move."

That got her team's attention. Not in the way she had hoped though.

"Ruby, are you crazy?"

"Now, I sure that there's an alternative..."

"Trust me, I know when someone is in the zone. Let him keep reading."

They all spoke in harsh whispers, despite the fact that they were a respectable distance away from the table.

In retrospect, Ruby felt that something told her to stop, even as she walked up to him. There was something _off_ about him. She wasn't quite sure what. Was it the six writhing tendrils that accompanied him? Was the fact that his two and a half meter frame was completely enclosed in deep sea green armor? Or was it the way that color seemed to dull whenever light touched him, giving the already ominous eye lenses of the helmet an aspect of lifelessness?

The helmet angled itself downwards, the piercing eyes fixing their gaze on her. The pages stopped flicking over, and the hand holding the book lowered.

"Greetings."

The harsh static filled grumble washed over Ruby, but she tried not to let it bother her.

What had Jaune said? ' _Strangers are just friends you haven't met yet._ ' She wasn't sure if the person in front of her was likely to ever be friendly, but she thought that the spirit of the phrase was more important. Keeping that in mind, she put on an amiable smile and replied.

"Hi… I'm Ruby." She stuck out her hand, however awkwardly.

The stranger seemed to study her for a moment, then shut the book in one hand with a muffled clap. He placed the book down on the table. Slowly, a gauntleted hand reached out and shook hers. The smooth metallic surface sucked warmth away from her hand with a stinging efficiency. She withdrew her hand a little more eagerly than she intended.

"I am Alpharius."

"Well, um… see those people over there?" The helmet turned to follow her pointing finger, acknowledging the three bundles of nerves and worry that masqueraded as human beings. "That's my team, Weiss, Blake and Yang."

Alpharius turned to face Ruby again, and spoke loud enough for the rest of the team to hear.

"Tell me Ruby, is it customary here to abandon one's leader in the face of the unknown?"

Ruby's started to get a little less nervous. Even through the electric static of the helmet, she could tell that the accusation was in good humor. Maybe it wouldn't go so badly after all.

"Well, I'd hope not." Ruby couldn't help but let a smile creep across her face. "But I'm ready to cut my friends some slack. Weiss too."

Weiss' indignant ' _Hey!_ ' echoed across the room. With their faces flushed red from embarrassment, the rest of team RWBY moved closer to the table, but stayed a few steps behind Ruby.

The odd contraption fixed to the side of the helmet telescoped inwards as the mismatched eye lenses turned to face Ruby again.

"How droll." He stated dryly. "Now Ruby, you must have a reason to have come here. Let's hear it."

The voice stayed oddly neutral, which somehow made it worse for Ruby to ask him. She was beginning to realize just what she got herself into. Her eyes slowly widened, darting from side to side in an attempt to get anyone to help her without making the situation worse. Even as she tried to keep the expression of mild panic off her face, she could only see the baleful, glowing eyes drilling into her skull.

Yang eventually intervened in her usual fashion. She stepped forward and clapped a hand down on Ruby's shoulder.

"Come on Ruby, tell him about the game."

And just like that, she vanished, safely behind Weiss and Blake. Ruby felt betrayed; left alone in the blast radius of this conversational disaster.

"Is this your game?" Alpharius' helmet tilted slightly as he gestured towards the box. "Do you wish to collect it?"

"Actually, we were hoping…" Ruby bit her lip. The only way out was forwards, damn the torpedoes. "We were hoping that we could play it. Here."

There, the painful truth out up front. The conversational ball was in his court now. Ha! Surely he would see the flawless reasoning behind her case, or see no option other than to comply! That would show Yang about throwing her sister under the bus. Again.

"I was under the impression that this building was a place of learning. A veritable monument to both the discovery and collection of knowledge."

Ruby screamed internally.

"I was working on what might actually qualify as a major research project, and you would have me believe that your game should take precedence over that?"

Ruby didn't know whether what he was saying was worse, or the slow, even tone he used. She was starting to regret going back for the twenty sided die after all.

* * *

The legionnaire was torn.

The Warpsmith and intellectual within him were shocked by their skewed priorities. As a veteran of the long war, he was actually bemused by them, especially their leader. As a legionnaire of the 20th, he was still undecided. Sending them away with their game would grant him what? A moment's solitude? In exchange for yet more distrust and ill favor at Beacon?

But what could he gain from indulging them? As he saw it, he had nothing to gain.

Or did he?

During his service to the Legion, he had developed what he considered to be his sixth sense. He liked to think that it his Primarchs' gift to the Legion, buried deep within their gene seed. It was a seemingly unnatural and inaccessible type of perception, not nearly at the level of an ingrained instinct. Yet, it had never failed him before, and the other legionnaires that it revealed itself in. It let him gain a measure of one's character and noteworthiness extremely quickly. It helped him decipher who would be helplessly crushed beneath the weight of building history, and who had the drive, passion, or even the misfortune to turn the wheels of a world.

The girls before him, while strikingly naïve, seemed to fit into latter of the two groups, even if they were oblivious to it. Perhaps he would do well to acquaint himself with them, or develop some semblance of a rapport.

He was also starting to feel like he had run the library dry, and that he needed something else to distract and amuse himself while he constructed a grander, more coherent plan. The logic engine had finished compiling all the material he needed, and when they arrived, he was merely re-reading sections that had caught his attention.

As he considered his options, he started thinking that building some positive links to Beacon could be in his best interest. And if he could gain the insight of some natives of Remnant, then all the better.

He decided it was time to put Ruby out of her dilemma. He would allow them their game. He regarded the box without moving his head. It was called Remnant: The Game. The box displayed a map of Remnant, and offered four players the opportunity to conquer the entirety of Remnant.

Convenient, considering his plan for the world. It seemed that Tzeentch's usual nonsense could reach through into Remnant, even if the rest of the warp couldn't. Under his helm, the corner of his mouth curved upwards. Ruby was clearly suffering. It was time to put her out of her misery.

* * *

Ruby was practically ready to snatch the box, and use her semblance to literally eject herself from the room when she heard Alpharius let out a low chuckle.

"Very well." His voice maintained a bemused tone, as he started using the robotic arms to collect and pick up the stacks. "Allow me but a moment longer."

"Oh-my-goodness-thank-you-so-much!" Ruby gushed, relieved that she didn't have to suffer through another embarrassment. "Really, I mean it. I'm sorry we bothered you."

Weiss came closer to the table with the rest of RWBY, and decided to add on to Ruby's last statement, seeing that the greatest risk of embarrassment was over and done with.

"We really do appreciate this, thank you very much for this favor."

As Alpharius filled up a nearby book return cart, he looked over his shoulder and regarded Weiss. With the aid of six extra arms, he was done quickly, and started walking back towards the table. His massive form managed to cast a shadow over the entire surface.

"Perhaps you could repay that favor immediately."

Weiss' eyebrows drew together in concern, she hadn't expected to be taken literally. But she refused to be thrown so easily.

"Did you have something in mind?"

"Would the four of you suffer my presence a while longer?"

RWBY exchanged glances. Even if they had only been formed up a term ago, they had been training, learning, and living together long enough to exchange large amounts of information with wordless glances. They were a little surprised by Alpharius' request, but they didn't deny that they wanted to find out more about him. The general consensus was one of curiosity, and openness to whoever the giant might be.

"We don't mind." Ruby started setting up the game. "But we hope that you don't mind if we play the game while you're here."

"Not at all, I expected as much." Alpharius made a dismissive gesture, oddly mirrored by one of the robotic arms.

With that, the game began. While it took a while for Blake to learn the basics, they were able to start the cycling the turns quickly. Even if it was odd to have Alpharius casting a shadow over the board, the conversation he made was mostly normal. Mostly.

There was a moment where he asked about the military progression bonus the Atlas player received, and whether it was designed to reflect an advantage in reality. That was a little odd. _Everyone_ knew that Atlas always got the newest inventions.

Then he started asking about the global Dust trade. At first Weiss was a little vexed, but soon it became clear that Alpharius had no idea she was an heiress to the biggest Dust producing and distributing company. That was a little odd, but RWBY shook it off. Alpharius seemed immensely pleased to find that Blake had no trouble talking about the more controversial aspects of the company, even while Weiss fumed silently.

Eventually, Yang decided to ask a question of her own.

"You ever take that helmet off?" The game perceptibly slowed down as the rest of the team concentrated on Alpharius. Yang thought it would be harmless to joke a little. "Or have you forgotten how?"

"I prefer to keep it on." Alpharius ignored the quip. "It filters out the various chemical agents that seem to suffuse the atmosphere of your planet."

"What?"

"Not the usual industrial pollutants, what do you call them again? Complex molecular structures, with four basic functional groups, sometimes suspended in the atmosphere as microscopic particulates?" His armored digits started drumming the table. "Ah, yes. You call it Dust, don't you?"

"No! I mean yes, but not that!"

The device attached Alpharius' helmet telescoped slightly, as he awaited clarification. Yang was still composing herself after _that_ revelation, much like Blake and Weiss. They were mostly shocked by how believable it was coming from him. Ruby, on the other hand, had almost no trouble accepting the implications.

"What do you mean by _your planet_?" Ruby could barely restrain her excitement; she was nearly jumping out of her seat. "You mean that you've left Remnant before? Like, to the moon?"

The massive pauldrons shifted around Alpharius' shoulders. He stayed quiet for a while, letting the entirety of RWBY hang on to his next words.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you Ruby-"He began, letting the team slide back from the edge of their seats. "-But I haven't been to Remnant's moon."

"While I have seen many worlds, I have only been in this star system for a few weeks at this point."

Ruby's eyes lit back up again.

"So you are an alien!" Ruby squeaked out. Alpharius stiffened at that. Even the mechanical arms froze up a span of time. "Are you all that tall? Is that why you're in that suit? Did you bring anything with you?"

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed, chastening her leader. "Don't be so blunt! Try to maintain some sense of restraint!"

This time, Alpharius' measured tone was different, as if he was speaking through grit teeth.

"I am no alien. I assure you that I am just as human as you are." Alpharius' gaze settled on Blake for a moment. "Debatably."

"It has taken various… procedures… to attain my current physique."

"It must have been quite the process to change you so drastically." Weiss inquired. "What kind of procedures exactly?"

"Miss Schnee, you must allow me some secrets." Alpharius' hand had moved to brush across the multi-headed creature painted on his chest plate.

"And going back to your question Ruby, the answer is yes. I have brought a few things with me."

Ruby's eyes widened along with her grin. She impulsively asked the first thing that sprang into her mind.

"Any weapons?"

* * *

The legionnaire was actually taken aback. Was something wrong with his armor? Had he horrifically mis-painted it?

He was a symbol of impending doom. Every curve and joint in his armor was designed and engineered to perfection, forged into the ideal armor of the deadliest killing machine humanity could create. He was certain that every surface of his battle plate had claimed a life at one point or another.

His mechadendrite chassis concealed a veritable armory. Various manipulator tips were combined with a plasma cutter, a combi-flamer, a multi-melta, and even a surgical chainblade. The arms themselves could punch through light vehicles like tissue paper.

An advanced fusion generator powered his noospheric warfare suite, his mechadendrite chassis and his armor. Dreamed out by the ancients, even the Alpha Legion only knew how to build the reactors, and searched endlessly for its principles. It probably had a greater maximum power output than the entire continent he was on.

He was a space marine of the 20th Legion Astartes. He was a walking frontline, a mobile communications blackout, and trained to infiltrate hostile systems for years on end. He had walked the worlds of this galaxy for thousands of years, working tirelessly for the Legion as a living shock and awe weapon.

And the girl asked if he was armed.

"Since you asked…"He drew his storm bolter, holding it in view of the group. He rotated it slightly, letting the light in the room shimmer against the acid etched hydras running along the twin barrels. It was a masterpiece he had never stopped perfecting, the one weapon he hadn't evolved for subtlety and silence. It had served by his side as long as he had served the Legion.

"This is something I brought with me."

The girl shot out of her seat, moving in a speedy blur that looked uncomfortably warp assisted, judging by the sudden appearance of red petals. He almost leveled the storm bolter at her head instinctively, but he was able to restrain himself. As he took in her rapt expression, he couldn't help but smile. He could sympathize with their wonder. He also saw the opportunity to gain something more than information out of this conversation after all. He only needed Ruby to ask the right questions.

"What does it fire?"

Perfect.

"It fires heavy caliber shells, with varying payloads." He pulled the manual ejection slide, freeing two bolts from their chambers. Even with his hands, the pair of shells was awkward to hold at the same time. Ruby was practically entranced. The rest of her team wasn't far behind.

"Doesn't the barrel length decrease range if you're firing something of _that_ gauge?"

While her knowledge of weapon systems was surprising, she was still falling excellently into place.

"Not when the projectiles are self-propelled."

Ruby mouthed 'self-propelled' to herself. She was practically drooling over his storm bolter. Now was the time to complete the plan.

"You seem rather interested Ruby." Ruby nodded wordlessly. The legionnaire held out one of the bolts. "Would you like to keep one of these?"

"You'd let me?" The girl beamed up at him.

"Of course I would, you'd just have to do me a favor in return." Now was the time to see if she would take the bait.

To the team's credit, they lost their enthralled edge almost instantly. They knew something was up. But Ruby still clearly wanted to keep a bolt, and her role as leader would keep the rest of the team in check for a little while.

"Alright then, what's the favor?"

"When I arrived at Beacon, I took a large container with me." The key was to make the favor sound completely harmless. Judging by the girl's face it was working. "I might have errands to run, so I'd just like you to keep an eye on it."

"I'd give you a small device, with a one-way transmitter. If anything were to happen to the container, you'd simply push a button and leave the rest to me."

Ruby seemed sold, even if her team were starting to have doubts.

"Deal!"

"Excellent." He handed her a modified vox caster, and a standard bolt round. "The container was offloaded near the rest of the academy's aircraft. It should still be there."

Ruby nodded vigorously.

"Don't worry, we'll keep an eye on it for you."

"Um, Ruby, about that…"

"Just wait a second, little sister."

Alpharius decided to make himself scarce before the rest of the team could ruin their agreement. He was relatively sure Ruby would hold up her end of the bargain. His auspex informed him that another group of four was drawing closer. All four were labeled as recognized, and harmless. Team JNPR. He managed to catch sight of them, heading towards the tables where he had left team RWBY. As he passed into their sight, he saw their eyes widen in dismay. He gave them a cursory nod before continuing on his path.

He was glad he spoke with the girls, even if it was a little jarring at times. Thanks to them, he had a plan. Not one of the simple, short term ones he had been employing in the past few weeks, but something altogether different. It was the kind of plan that the Legion forged at its best: flexible enough to survive contact with the unexpected, but tailored with enough details to be perfectly suited to the specific conditions it would be required to operate in.

And he would put it into action immediately.

* * *

By the time they caught up with Alpharius, he was deep inside the CCT. Bartholomew had found him there, after a long arduous search. For some reason the cameras couldn't pick Alpharius up, no matter how many adjustments or reboots they tried. That left it up to Bartholomew and junior staff to do most of the leg work, after promising to inform the rest of them once Alpharius was found.

On a personal level, Peter had to hand it to him. Slipping away from them in the forest was one thing, but doing so at Beacon? Alpharius was turning out to be an excellent ghost. Peter was nearly with Bartholomew, having spent most of the walk there both dreading and anticipating the prospect of Alpharius.

Between Ozpin and Glynda's impressions, Peter was ready for the worst. He had seen the pictures Glynda took on the bullhead flying back. The armor looked like something even Ironwood would never even dream of building. The extra arms seemed to have lives of their own, snaking around Alpharius' body at asymmetric angles. He couldn't even begin to describe the odd aura that seemed to follow him around, aside from the sheer incongruity of it with everything else.

Peter had dealt with very terrible people in the past. People outside the kingdoms who went on killing sprees if only to encourage the Grimm to join them in their slaughter. People who burned Faunus alive. An equally disturbed Faunus who wanted nothing more than to surgically 'correct' humans. They were the sources of stories that he wouldn't tell even the bravest of his students. They were the kind of people that Hunters soon realized could be a worse threat than the Grimm. Peter was ready for Alpharius to be more than an equal to any of those psychopaths.

What he wasn't ready for was the dispute he had walked in on between Alpharius and Bartholomew. Bartholomew as not, by any means, a short man, but he seemed dwarfed by Alpharius. Bartholomew looked ridiculous, craning his neck to look Alpharius in the eye.

"The communication protocols of these towers are fundamentally flawed. The design of the link layer is absurd. It grates the mind to use it! How any rational mind could have come up with the system is beyond me!"

"I don't claim to be well versed in this type of network-"

"I do."

"-But I know that the manner in which the network is managed across all the towers ensures minimal data corruption."

"At the cost of reliability? If a single tower goes down the entire network does? If someone described the network to me before I arrived on Remnant, I'd have denounced it as a heavy handed plot device! And yet here it is! Even if reliability weren't an issue, Oobleck, there are other ways around that kind of data corruption."

Bartholomew and Alpharius seemed to have hit it off. While the conversation was heated, their tones were more suited to a debate room than a warzone.

Peter's gaze traveled across the rest of the room, and furrowed his eyebrows when he saw the holographic AI assistant. Or what remained of it. The projection was a garbled mess of static, but every so often the hologram momentarily refocused into a chunk of the usual woman. The terminal Alpharius was at seemed glitched out. Instead of the usual interface, an arcane combination of flickering code output feeds and waveforms filled the screen.

"Alpharius, we simply don't have access to the kind of satellite networks that your people must use. The CCT towers are the only method we found for long range communications, as I'm sure you know, radio waves just don't cut it over the horizon."

"Surely you are joking." Alpharius turned away from the terminal for only a moment, but there was no disguising how appalled he was. "Correct usage of your planet's ionosphere would solve the horizon problem for you. Just because you can't get into space doesn't mean you should turn away from it completely."

As Bartholomew prepared a response, Peter took that moment to cut in.

"Ah! Alpharius, we were looking for all over for you! Won't you accompany us for a little stroll? I'd like to chat with you about something."

Bartholomew was aghast, remembering why they were looking for Alpharius in the first place. Alpharius on the other hand, stared at Peter appraisingly, as if he was taking his time to decide if Peter was marginally more interesting than the terminal or not.

Peter didn't notice that some of the tendrils had impaled parts of the terminal until they were withdrawn from the steel casing. The impressive amount of sparks spilt over the ground as he withdrew the arm was accompanied by the squeal of tortured metal. Alpharius shifted his gaze back towards the glitched out terminal, but not before he replied.

"Allow me but a moment to finish."

"Excellent! Perhaps outside near the main avenue would be best." He clasped his hands together, deciding to indulge his curiosity. "What happened to the holographic assistant?"

"It was an assistant?" The massive pauldrons shrugged, "I believe the damage is irreparable. My security processes detected it as a malevolent data construct and annihilated it. Dangerously close to Abominable intelligence. Your farce of a network is safer for it."

"Ah."

What more could anyone say to that?

* * *

Remnant was in an ideal situation for change. The councils that masqueraded as governments were weak; pushed around by several key power players in the political web of Remnant. The four Hunter academies, the energy propellant monopoly based in Atlas, and several other fringe groups whose influence was more mercurial. When this was combined with the high hopes that their social ideals carried, and the ever present threat of the Grimm, the wider population shouldn't have stood for the way their world worked.

And that was where the Legionnaire came in. At first he wondered why such a revolution hadn't occurred before he arrived, if the conditions were so perfect. He thought that he might have missed something. And after spending time with team RWBY, he found that he did miss something. The Hunters and Huntresses were revered as heroes, as celebrities, as role models. Everyone wished they could be one. The people were in love with their pseudo-aristocracy. The legionnaire knew that once they were disillusioned, the change would start. Once they managed to tear their gaze away from the impeccable shine of the hunters' armor, they would look down and realize that they were wearing rags in comparison. But the legionnaire needed maintain control of whatever came out of it. An ideological edge was useless if you weren't the one wielding it.

It became the game of controlling information, thought and belief. In that game, the thousands of pieces didn't matter, only the abstract concepts of morale, pressure, and momentum. Of all games that existed, it was the most difficult one. It could end in either the horrendous inferno of war, or in a bloodless economic absorption. It was the game of winning a world, and keeping it.

Luckily for him, the 20th legion was the best at it.

He was brought back to the present by a question he couldn't reasonably sidestep.

"Do you understand where I am coming from?"

Port was telling him about visitors that were coming to Beacon. Competitors for a competition that Beacon or Vale was hosting. Oobleck had stayed in the CCT, presumably to calm the skittish maintenance crews. Port was especially curious about his intentions or plans for the span of the competition.

"I have little reason to interfere with Beacon's business."

"That is a relief, my dearest fellow, but I must say that we have reason to interfere with yours. Alpharius, did you not come to an understanding with the headmaster? You may treat this as the first of your bi-weekly meetings, if you so desire. Considering your recent actions, we can't let you walk away in good faith, without the slightest idea of what you are doing and where you are."

Such persistence. It was getting irritating, perhaps he shouldn't have been so eager to leave the interview room. He came to Beacon with the intention of ridding himself of any shackles. He had just exchanged them for different ones. Anyway, Port clearly had a thirst for knowledge and he could sympathize with that.

But he couldn't tell them that he spent most of the time in the CCT spreading seeds of doubt and alternate thought throughout their ersatz noosphere. Little ideas and suggestions that would worm their way into Vale. He saw them almost immediately take root, but they were still vulnerable to outside influence. He couldn't reveal his hand yet. Perhaps a little disinformation wouldn't be out of place.

"I wish only to get back off world." ignoring the dubious expression that met him, he continued. "As I am sure you understand, I dislike being marooned. Perhaps I shall gather knowledge to bring back with me while I am here."

"Who would you bring it back to?" Port pressed "What would they do with that information?"

The legionnaire could hear the unspoken question: _What will become of our world?_ Perhaps he should have steered the conversation elsewhere, but he couldn't help but make a more direct challenge.

"I agreed to speak about what I would do on Remnant. Not away from it."

To Port's credit, he didn't so much as flinch in the face of sudden hostility and coldness. Remnant bred strong people; the Legion would benefit greatly from having this world.

"Fair enough, I won't press it for now." Port passed his gaze over Beacon's campus. "Then tell me, where were you after you spoke with Ozpin? We had a hell of a time finding you."

"I was… speaking with a few of the students. It was quite enlightening."

"You- Which students?!" A surprising outburst. Port seemed quite concerned about the wellbeing of the students. It was a bizarre worry, which he filed away for later consideration.

"You would have me give up their identities, just so you might pump them for yet more information?"

"Yes!"

Port's mustache was twitching in synchrony with his eye. His targeting cogitator gave it a preliminary classification as a small animal. An understandable error.

"Hm... No. I won't disclose their names."

"If anything happened to them-"

"Oh, worry not professor. They are perfectly fine. In fact, I gave them a means by which to stay in contact with me…"

The legionnaire trailed off as he registered a blinking rune in his helm's visor. The transmitter he gave Ruby had just been activated. He had a measure of her character; this wouldn't be a false alarm. Something was wrong with the doomsday pod.

He started spooling up his reactor, feeling the infrasonic growl of the fusion processes accelerating. His mechadendrites ran pre-combat articulation checks, making dull clacks as servos tested themselves. The mechadendrites parted, no longer concealing his storm bolter. The mechadendrite equipped with a flamer ignited its pilot flame. The melta and plasma equivalents both cleared their vents, and started building reservoir pressure.

Port could only splutter as the legionnaire moved past him, running a cable from his armor to his storm bolter. When a mechadendrite tested its chainblade, the mechanical purr of the high powered motor was able to break Port out of his stupor.

"Where… What are you doing?!"

The legionnaire had no time for him. The future of Remnant was at stake and he'd be damned if he didn't have a part in it.

* * *

Sitting on the bottom bunk of her bed, Ruby passed the bolt from hand to hand. The smooth surface of the shell still had the faintest traces of oil, left behind by some loading mechanism that once stored it. It was heavy, and even bigger than Nora's grenades. Continuing with that metric of comparison, she noticed a significant absence of pink; the manufacturer having settled for a plain brass surface.

As she slowly turned it over, she saw markings etched into its side. They were regular little things, spaced evenly over a small part of the surface. On any one of her sniper cartridges, there were similar factory marks that provided standard information: the dust type, the date of production, the production run it was in, and a few other data points.

There were no dust symbols that she could recognize. The markings weren't in a language she could read, but they used the same alphabet. This drew her attention towards the numerical markings, which as far as she could tell, were identical to Remnant's. Most of it was a hopeless wash of numbers, but she felt that she could understand some parts of it.

She held the bolt close enough to see a dark reflection of her silver eyes in the polished casing. She slowly rotated the bolt, contemplating the novelty of holding ammunition from another world. Questions swam in her head: Was it a recent invention? Or was it tried and tested technology? Was it a specialized round? Or was it mass produced?

She was able to make something out of the script.

 _3.463.087.M37_

She was broken from her reverie by the creak of the door. As Blake and Yang walked in she lowered the bolt, almost guiltily. Yang frowned when she took in the rest of the room.

"What's up with Weiss?"

Ruby's gaze traveled back to the bed she was sitting on. Weiss was lying face down on her bunk, leaving Ruby to sit at the foot of the bed. Weiss pulled herself upright when she heard Yang's voice, and let out a muffled grumble.

"Her aura is drained. She pretty much crashed after we moved Alpharius' box up here." Ruby gestured towards the new pillar of grey metal in their room. "She should be fine soon. She used her glyphs to lift it. Apparently it weighed a lot."

"Twice that." Weiss managed to gripe, while leaning back into a pillow. "How does Goodwitch do it?"

"I think her semblance is more specialized." Blake pointed out. "Haven't you seen it?"

Weiss tried to make a dismissive gesture before she gave up half way. She turned slightly, propping her pillow up in a better position. Yang moved closer to inspect their room's new décor. It filled up quite a bit of the empty space they had in the room, but didn't quite make it cramped. Blake shook her head and went to her usual spot to read. Yang turned back towards her sister with a dubious look on her face.

"You actually moved it up here?"

Ruby smiled nervously, even as a muted " _I_ moved it! _"_ emanated from Weiss' pillow.

"Well, I kinda did promise to keep an eye on it. And we can't do that if it's down in the loading area, right?"

Yang's attitude softened a little as she took in her sister's nerves. She could sympathize with her, but she still needed to see if Ruby realized the significance of what was going on. Even if they didn't know at the time, the business with Alpharius was serious. Dead serious.

"Even after hearing what team JNPR had to say about him? Maybe a promise to someone like him shouldn't carry the same weight?"

Weiss let out a soft groan when she heard the word _weight_. Ruby began rolling the bolt between her hands, glancing absently around the room. Eventually Ruby replied, almost in a whisper.

"I didn't know. He seemed nice enough, even if he acted odd. He didn't seem like…" Ruby trailed off. "We were always told to keep promises. By the time anyone told us anything about what happened in the Emerald Forest, I thought it was too late to back out. He didn't strike me as… a killer."

"They don't always." Yang was surprised to hear Blake speak up. "Not every murderer takes after Torchwick. They almost always start sane and reasonable at first. Even when they sink deeper and deeper, it never means they abandon their past selves; it's dragged in with them. The worst use it to string you along, making you think that person was always there beside you, when in reality, that person is long gone."

Ruby buried her face in her hands, dropping the bolt altogether. It made a dull thud as it hit the ground.

"I feel horrible. He tried to distract me with baubles and trinkets. He tried to corner me into deal I shouldn't have taken. He tried to bribe me with a bullet. And you know what the worst part is? _It worked!_ And now the team's suffering for my mistake. Some leader I am!"

Yang winced as Weiss nodded slightly to the word _suffering_. At least Ruby missed it. Yang eyes widened as she spotted a tear roll down Ruby's cheek. Crap. She wasn't expecting that to happen. Tears wouldn't do at all.

"Hey, hey, come on now. That was a pretty kickass gun, I think we can forgive you for falling for it. Hell, he even strung me along for a while! I'm sure we'll be able to deal with whatever comes out of this."

Yang shot Blake a glare; she wouldn't dare abandon her in a moment like this. Blake sighed and closed her book.

"Ruby, listen to me." Blake waited until Ruby was looking at her. "It isn't as bad as you make it out to be. Nor is it as bad as it could be."

"Really?"

"Just rationalize it for a moment. He probably could've had you doing worse: spying, petty thievery, heck, even report writing. He hasn't twisted us around his finger as much as he could have. To be perfectly blunt Ruby, you were dancing to his tune perfectly. But he didn't make you bend over backwards for him."

"Thanks? I think?"

"Think about it for a second. He has us babysitting an inanimate object. Sure, it's troublesome, but considering what he's done, it isn't the worst thing imaginable. And on the plus side, you got that alien bullet. All in all, you got us a decent deal. And that's assuming we'll even bother watching it."

Ruby smiled faintly, now that she was in better spirits. Yang let out a breath. Crisis averted.

"We did bring it up here." Ruby ignored Weiss' muttered complaint. "We might as well follow through."

"Well, it doesn't look like it's going anywhere." Yang moved back towards Alpharius' box as she spoke. "We're stuck with this hunk of metal until something happens."

With that she gave it a little shove with one hand. For a moment, nothing happened, and Yang felt that one bit more satisfied with herself, having hit something else today.

Then a hairline crack opened up in the side, hissing as pneumatics pushed the box open. A freezing mist wafted out of the narrow opening, letting frost race over coarse surface. The front panels peeled themselves apart like a pair of double doors, slowly letting the cold fog billow over the floor.

The panels were then battered aside as something fell forwards through them, shaking the ground with a hammer blow of an impact.

* * *

When he received Ruby's signal the Legionnaire was shocked to find that they moved the doomsday pod. He had fully expected it to be immobile, considering the substantial mass, but somehow it had moved several stories up into a completely different building. He had already ruled out equipment failure, the position it was transmitting was correct.

That was of little importance now, considering what little he knew about the inside of that pod.

The Legion had a service summary of the marine in the pod, but it would only come in handy if the marine in question still had control over his basic motor functions. Daemonic possession wasn't exactly the most certain of states to begin with, but the mishmash of entities crammed into the marines' head sent everything up in the air.

The doomsday pod's event line was a perfect showcase of a Chaos warband's logic at work.

A moderately sized warband got stuck with a powerful daemon weapon they couldn't control, and decided it would be best to sic it on a recently acquired loyalist prisoner. And when the binding ritual was irrevocably interrupted? There was clearly no option other than to throw more daemons at the problem, to keep the first in check. At times the Legionnaire marveled that they didn't all just stumble blindly into the warp, considering how reckless they were with such a dangerous tool.

When the pod fell into the hands of the Legion, the legionnaires on site probably made the right call to keep it shut. Eventually they decided to let the Farseers of Craftworld Biel-Tan find out what exactly was going on inside. The thing that made the situation more difficult to read was the daemon itself. The daemon was bound to a sonic blaster, which was a rare weapon to be possessed in such a manner. Normally daemon weapons were possessed by more straightforward daemons, theoretically easier to control and understand. While he was no librarian, the fact that the daemon had to be imprisoned in the weapon spoke volumes of its power. It suggested that it couldn't be bought off with sacrifices, or simply exorcised, which could sometimes satisfy greater daemons. And that was before he took the four other daemons into account.

As loath as he was to admit it, the legionnaire was relying on the marine holding out against the daemons. Remnant's fate was probably out of his hands if the possession was absolute.

Then he heard a sound he dreaded. A triple discharge. The gap between the explosions was barely noticeable, even with his augmented senses. He recognized it for what it was: a bolt firing at point blank range.

The first explosion was accompanied by the crash of metal against metal, representing a hammer striking the igniter of the propellant charge, accelerating the shell out of the barrel. The second was a more drawn out roar, the horrific growl of a rocket motor engaging in the main stage of the bolt as the initial charge burned out. The final discharge was devastating and terminal, as the mass reactive warhead within the bolt found reason to detonate.

He redoubled his already urgent pace. He wouldn't let this become another Vraks.

* * *

A shuddering mass of metal was sprawled across the floor of their dorm. When he first dropped out of the box, they thought that he was somewhat similar to Alpharius, considering the same overarching design of the armor. Now that the condensed mist was parting, they could see stark differences.

Once they thought Alpharius' armor was an avant-garde nightmare of iconography and redundancies. In comparison to the specimen before them, it now seemed streamlined and subdued, utilitarian even. Apart from the different armor color, they could see a vast array of chains, gilded eagles and metallic etchings swept across the surface of the armor. The armor itself was bulky, with proud, bold angles worked into the plates with a type of artistic craftsmanship that simply didn't exist in Alpharius'.

But that wasn't what troubled them the most. It wasn't what drew them in, closer and closer to the coal-red eyes. It wasn't the sinister skull mask that Weiss pulled herself from her bed to see.

Dreadful symbols were chipped into the surface of the armor, as if some crazed mind had taken a stone to its painted surface. Tiny scrapes lined up to form patterns that made their stomachs churn and their eyes burn. They overwrote the regal and clear patterns of the armor with biting and grotesque symbols.

Yet the most alarming aspect was the overall atmosphere that he brought with him. Alpharius only, _only_ , managed to dull color and light around him. Normally it was disconcerting, but it never seemed to affect anyone else.

The aura of the new figure increased that effect by several orders of magnitude. Light wrapped itself around him like heavy chains. The air flowed around his body like bleeding snakes, pulsing with unnatural vivacity. Where his gauntlets met the ground, solids seemed to run like water, spinning inwards on themselves as he touched them, and were pulled into the menacing corona of color and melting shapes that cascaded over and around him.

They all jumped when something else fell out of the box. Even while it dropped incomprehensibly slowly, the sounds it made plucked at the core of their very beings. As it came to a rest on the ground, they were able to see it clearly.

"Is that…" Blake paused for a moment, almost shrinking from breaking the silence. The rest of her team winced at the sudden noise. She continued anyway. "Is that a guitar?"

Before anyone could confirm the obvious, the strings began ringing out, barely louder than a whisper at first. Somehow, the toneless notes maintained a dire semblance of a melody, gently building itself stronger and stronger. It pulled strands of sorrow, bliss, melancholy, and dread from their souls. At times the music felt as if it were a blade that was dragged across them, with bright sparks of pain tracing over the slices in their minds. At other times it was the most delightful elixir of elation, sending shudders of euphoria up their spines. Reality threw itself to and fro in the chaotic swirl of sound.

Then the music truly began.

For team RWBY, most music was something that was used as a background to whatever they were doing. Almost always a simple tune that served its sole purpose well enough, and was listened to with little regard to the artistry, since most of the time there wasn't any.

Then there were true works of art. Music that pulled you in with a graceful force, tangibly building the foundations of a melody for the ages. In those first moments, your attention was surrendered unconditionally, your senses devoted themselves entirely to their worship of the rhythm, letting you hang unquestioningly over the edge, pleading for it all to reach its culmination. And when it delivered, it was all worth it. To send yourself into another realm on a flurry of notes and beats, completely at the mercy of the composer, caring only about the timeless wonder of the sounds. And when it was all over, it left you a hollow husk of a person. A tiny part of you rejoiced in your discovery, while another minuscule part died, knowing you would never listen to it for the first time ever again, but for the most part, you'd simply sit there feeling an empty sense of loss. Like a person who was blind all their life, given sight for only the briefest of moments.

Yet even those rare few pieces of music paled in comparison to the noise that emanated from the steel strings of the guitar.

For team RWBY, and nearly all humans for that matter, all music that they had ever heard was based upon fundamental truths of rhythm. The greatest geniuses were completely at home with that concept, and acknowledged that the beauty of the music was both built with and constrained by those principles.

But the music they heard in that moment was something else entirely. It was as if someone had taken a liking to the core conventions of music, but found their human origins too restrictive. In response, it took the chains that had bound down prodigy after prodigy for untold thousands of years and used them as stepping stones to attain an altogether higher level of sensation. It weaved the mathematical human constructs together with the immaterial and inconceivable. It had laughed in the face of mortal limitations and flaunted its hauntingly beautiful composition of impossibility with utter confidence and pride.

Where music once could only raise goose bumps on their skin, and send shivers down their spine, it now reached directly into the very core of their beings with a vivid flourish of colors and emotions. The imagery it lavished upon their minds was abstractions of desire, hope, faith and sorrow. The bleakness of the landscape painted across their mind had a dark allure in its vivacity. The sheer intensity of the music started overwhelming them, until they started to feel as if they were drowning, adrift in the torrent of emotion.

A black clad fist closed around the neck of the guitar.

He had struck with the speed of a snake, grasping the strings in an unshakeable grip. As the notes were strangled out of existence, the music faded. Even as team RWBY let out a breath they didn't know they were holding, they could see the walls of the room warp back to their normal dimensions. The light shifted back into colors they could name.

The figure dragged the guitar in towards himself, like a man throwing himself over a grenade. He looked like he had spent the last of his strength to lock his grip on the guitar, yet even then, his eyes flared with unshakeable conviction.

* * *

Waking from suspended animation was normally assisted by various nerve stimulants that allowed a marine to wake with little to no trouble at all. Most of the time an Apothecary would also be present to ensure the resuscitation procedures were followed correctly.

Amadeus had no such luck. He was awoken in a blinding pain, his nervous system overloaded by the sudden rush of sensation. His brain was stuck in a storm of razors, leaving him to flail helplessly for control.

He focused his gauntlet, squeezing the adamantium and Wraithbone construction of the instrument with all his strength. Every fiber of his being was focused silencing the daemon's assault. He felt it regard him with faint surprise, as if it saw nothing wrong with itself.

 _I'm sure they were enjoying my performance. Must you have cut it off before the climax?_

He felt his grip waver as the daemon slid back into his mind, its simple presence enough to tug at the edges of his sanity. The lilting voice echoed in his mind, daring him to compare it to a human's. He wouldn't. But the daemon knew it had the advantage and was pressing it. There was little time left, he had to break the daemon's momentum.

 _Is it that you can't tie me down, or is it that you won't?_

Amadeus moved his gaze towards the four shards of color that swam across his vision. As they came into focus he could make out more than just their vague silhouettes. He grit his teeth as the daemon shared its senses with him. He was able to repel the intrusion with a moment's concentration, but the memory was not so easy to discard. The entire group glowed, reminding him of flares dropped into the void by a strike cruiser. Such fleeting things, and yet they burned so brightly.

 _The one in red, did you see how her soul shone?_

Their faces resolved, and he could see their expressions. Fear. Horror. Dismay. Morbid curiosity. They were human expressions, all of them. Humanity owned this world. He couldn't let this daemon loose on one of the Emperor's worlds, not while he drew breath. He would do what he had to do to protect the Emperor's subjects.

Yet, even with his new found motivation, he simply couldn't push back the malevolent sphere of the daemon's influence. He could feel his will bend under the pressure. He realized that he would have to deny the daemon its access point into real space. If he couldn't keep a position he would deny it to the enemy.

He glanced about the room desperately and locked his gaze on what he needed. He couldn't reach it, and could barely voice his order as he fought.

"Bring me the bolt."

Amadeus knew that he must have looked despicably pitiful. Helplessly immobile on the floor, and laid out like a gutted guardsman. He could hear them bicker and debate. Delay as their time grew short. He forced out more words, sacrificing yet more precious energy to speak in a voice that brokered no alternatives.

"Do not dare tarry. Bring me the bolt."

He didn't waste his concentration listening to them. A moment later, the bolt was placed before him, well within his reach. As he pulled his bolt pistol from its holster he felt muscles tear with the effort. As loaded the bolt into the empty chamber, he heard his bones buckle and bend. He ignored it.

He lowered the pistol and considered the next course of action. He doubted he would have the manual dexterity to remove his helm, so the wisest choice would be his center mass. He burnt his focus on the task of unlocking and removing his secondary gorget plate. The shot would be at an awkward angle, but it would avoid his re-structured ribcage. With that in mind, he pushed the barrel of the bolt pistol against the base of his neck, now unshielded by armor.

* * *

They could only watch with a horrid fascination as he loaded the bolt into his weapon. They shrunk back as a symphony of crackling accompanied his movements. They recognized the sickening crunches from nightmarish accidents in combat classes: the sound of ripping tendons.

When a plate of armor was released, Ruby got an inkling of what was going on. A patch of skin just above his collar bone was left bare as the plate hit the ground. Even through the skin suit he wore, she could see the sinews pulled taut, drawn tight like steel wires. Her eyes darted back to the pistol as he raised it slowly. Even while his body convulsed and rattled, his gun hand stayed steady, as if it were moving on oiled bearings. She could hear her team's breath hitch as the gun sights passed over them, before continuing its arc as he pulled muzzle in a smooth curve.

To rest it against the base of his neck.

Even as their cries of dismay left their throats, he pulled the trigger. The shattering roar stopped them dead in their tracks, the concussive wave of the discharge robbing them of their hearing in the confined space. The bolt lanced downwards into his chest, the explosive round contained by his armor.

A spray of blood burgeoned out of the wound, tracing the bolt's path backwards, and splattered his gun hand with gore. The skull mask gazed blankly into the distance, oblivious to the crimson splash that colored it. The golden eagle on his chest plate turned bronze as blood slid over it. Slowly and surely, with the inevitability of a glacier, he fell forwards from his knees, collapsing onto the ground.

The blood staunched. He was still. No more of the twisted glow suffused the armor, only dead metal remained. A silence fraught with disbelief filled the room.

Yang blinked hard. She slowly walked forwards, reaching towards what she swore could only be an illusion. Her hand touched the shoulder pad, a striking yellow against most of the armor's black. The cold metal was still condensating moisture in the air, and her fingertips came away with a thin film of water.

"Get away from that!" Weiss practically hissed at her. "Isn't that how this all started?"

"You're telling me you don't make sure it's real?" Yang grinned weakly, but backed away regardless.

She sat down on a bunk, staring inanely at the horrendously sized cadaver in the middle of their dorm. The rest of team RWBY followed her cue, taking a few moments to reconfirm what their eyes were telling them. Ruby stared at the transmitter Alpharius had given her, the switch flicked in what seemed like an eternity ago. After a while it became clear that they would have to do something about this.

Weiss turned on her scroll, and held a shaking hand over a button. The rest of the team observed her with grim interest.

"Weapons." She clarified.

Ruby and Yang nodded blankly, and prepared to call their respective weapons. Blake was a little more skeptical.

"Isn't it a little late now?"

"As emergency measures go, arming ourselves now is practically preemptive."

"Preempting what?" Blake muttered. She pulled her own scroll out anyway. Something was at odds with every fiber of her being, her every instinct screaming at her to run. Something wasn't right about the armored behemoth, even if it was dead. She swallowed the thoughts down, and glanced at the door. She wouldn't run. She promised she wouldn't.

A series of clicks caught Team RWBY's attention. Their hearts were heavy as they turned their gaze to the center of the room, dreading what they would see.

A fist clenched and opened, periodically and mechanically. With a sudden crackle, malign electricity began arcing over his entire form, pulling him back upright as blinding sparks spilt off his body. They saw the gaping wound hiss with dark energies. They could see bone fragments knit together, tiny white slivers materializing out of nothingness and inserting themselves in between breaks as they closed together. They could see flesh weave itself back together and fuse anew as arcane light poured out of the sealing wound.

"No, this cannot be..."

His grindingly deep tone seemed more surprised than upset or angry, as if he was mildly impressed that anything could have gotten worse for him. He looked down at the guitar in his hand, and started laughing. His laugh was the tormented laugh of a man sent to the gallows.

"I see how it is, daemon. Death is my fate, yet never my choice. Poetic almost."

The lights and sparks were streaming into a mist, flowing in a tornado towards the guitar, where the hungry surface devoured it. Even through the battering storm that now surrounded him, he held himself upright. Even on his knees he kept his indefatigable bearing. His blood dripped from the jaw of the skull mask built on to the helmet.

"If you want my soul, you shall have to take it. Take it by storm. I'll give you a last stand for the ages. You won't soon forget-"

The dorm's door burst inwards in an explosion of fiery splinters and ash. A sea-green blur powered into the room with a speed that belied its size. It plunged into the tempest at the center of the room, not pausing in its advance until it collided with the core.

There was a sickening crack, and then all was still once again. The storm was silenced, and order reasserted itself.

As Alpharius stood there in all his dark glory, Ruby never thought she would be so relieved to see him.

* * *

The legionnaire stepped backwards, examining his handiwork. His ceramite heel had shattered the marine's neck, even with its reinforced bio structure. He lowered his mechadendrites, and slowly unwound from his combat configuration.

He let the flamer's pilot flame flicker out, hearing it give off a low hiss as the fuel lines depressurized. He let his surgical chainblade slow down, feeling it slide on frictionless bearings as it spun off its momentum. He heard his reactor pack return to its usual near-silent purr, no longer ready to power a noospheric combat suite capable of crippling a titan.

He turned to face the girls that nearly witnessed the doom their world.

"That should buy some time."

It was almost endearing to see how Ruby's face so openly displayed her thoughts. Crystal clear expressions flashed over her face; Betrayal, confusion, fear, anger, and relief all so plain to see in her round silver eyes. If only he had time for it.

"Who- What was that?"

In any other circumstance, he would have toyed with the knowledge, and manipulated the information anyone else had. There was little point to it now, and he wasn't willing to spend time and energy weaving a passable lie. He decided to answer Ruby to the best of his abilities.

He gestured with his storm bolter at the marine's head, watching the wrecked skeletal structure begin to reform itself as the daemon healed its host.

" _That_ is Chaplain Amadeus of the Imperial Fists. And he is probably possessed by a daemon."

Taking in their delightfully bewildered expressions, he couldn't help but add an addendum.

"Or five."

* * *

 **A/N**

 **I'd like to thank Cheshire Kat24 for letting me use his story "Noize" as inspiration for the character of Amadeus. Read it. Trust me, it is an excellent story.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**

 **It's been a while.**

* * *

Remnant knew little about the Astartes of the wider galaxy. In most cases, the Legionnaire would have been perfectly content keeping it that way. It meant that anyone who saw him would be forced to take him at face value, limiting their inferences to what they could see.

That was something he could easily manipulate. By carefully controlling his appearance and behavior, he could build a false image to his own specifications. A slow, pondering gait would suggest sluggishness, poor coordination and over-encumbering armor. Displaying a tendency to favor close combat would lead one to doubt his proficiency at long range. These were just a few ways to exploit the information deficit.

But even if he were to make extensive use of his full capabilities, he would still maintain a psychological edge. To someone who had never heard of space marines, there was a set of fundamental human limits that they subconsciously believed. A metaphorical line in the sand that couldn't be crossed. They simply wouldn't comprehend that such shackles didn't exist to the Adeptus Astartes. There was a certain weight that the title carried, earned in an age when gods walked amongst men. The galaxy _knew_ space marines. Remnant didn't. It was an excellent advantage to maintain, but it was a double-edged blade to the Legionnaire.

His trans-human status didn't project the same awe and dread that it might have on other worlds. To the four in front of him, he was a towering alien behemoth. He was a machiavellian deceiver. He was a murderer.

But he wasn't a space marine. They didn't know what that was.

And it had never irked the legionnaire more than it was now. He wasn't bothered by their demands for answers. He wasn't ready to waste time thinking about how his plans had been derailed before he could put them into action. What was pushing the legionnaire to the limit of his patience was their unrelenting refusal to even hear him out. At least Ozpin and his staff maintained some form of cautious ambivalence around him. The girls cared not, and refused him even the slightest deference that he had become accustomed to as a marine. Not even the guarded respect of a capable opponent. He was just another villain to them, another figure to be reviled and ridiculed amongst petty thieves and bandits.

"You didn't think to tell us anything about _that_?"

Weiss, if he recalled correctly. She was dangerously close to him. She wasn't pointing an accusatory finger, but the tone of her voice left little to the imagination. Judging by the transformation of their attitudes, her team must have found out about the mutant in the forest. Following a disgusting trend, they were keeping it in the forefront of their minds, for no legitimate reason that he could discern. It seemed as if they were simply refusing to give any thought to the wider consequences of anything that was happening; too attached to the moral convictions ingrained into them.

As the tirade continued, the legionnaire felt his ire rise. He couldn't recall the last time he had been so close to the edge. So close to snapping. It was a cold fury that eased its way through his veins, sliding him over the brink with the pressure and inevitability of a glacier. He felt muscles slowly tense as the icy sensation stabbed into them. It was a cool and contemplative anger, bringing increasingly _direct_ solutions to the forefront of his mind. They began to look objectively viable, attractive even, as thoughts of gore clouded their consequences.

He caught sight of the faintest spark leaping across Amadeus' war plate. His unsought patron was healing him again. At least he found a vent for his annoyance. He turned away from the group and brought his ceramite-clad boot down on Amadeus' neck in a quick, brutal stomp.

The crack of spinal discs shattering silenced the room. To say it was cathartic would have been an understatement. He collected his thoughts for a moment before turning back to them.

* * *

Ruby winced as the snapping noise echoed around the room. It was really horrible to think about, but she realized that he'd have to do it again. Very soon. Unless they wanted the other option. She clutched Crescent Rose a little tighter as he looked down at them. He spoke with an edge of irritation, but it soon faded back into his regular measured cadences.

That was new. Other than dry amusement, she had never heard him let much emotion color his voice before.

"I understand that you are discontent with what I have done-"

"Discontent? You killed-"

Ruby shrank back from the look he gave Weiss. It was surprising how he could manage such a withering glare with his helmet on. Under the intensity of it, Ruby's composure would have lasted as long as a snowflake in a deep fryer. Winning Ruby's eternal admiration, Weiss' only reaction was to swallow, and step back a little.

"-But the deed is done. The past is lost to the winds of entropy. I have dealt death. Despite what you have just seen, you need extremely special circumstances to reverse the process."

He used his gun to gesture vaguely at the collapsed figure beneath him. He turned to face the massive metal box and seemed to contemplate it, the contraption on the side of his head spinning as it telescoped inwards.

"I approached you in good faith, asking you to do me a favor. You later discovered something unsavory about me, and closed ranks against me. Perhaps I committed a moral transgression in your eyes, one bad enough to turn you against me. I understand your views, but that doesn't take away from their invalidity. Now isn't the time for such considerations."

She'd heard that tone before. It was the exact one he used in the library when he explained why Yang's already wise move would have been more powerful six turns later. Back then, it was easy for her to take that clinical detachment as distant thoughtfulness. Now, it was positively chilling.

"You can't chastise us for failing to ignore the blood on your hands!" Blake hissed. "Who are you to say who dies?"

"Two can play that game, girl." He replied evenly, if a little distantly. "Who are you to say who lives?"

One of his extra arms reached towards the metal box, and extricated a sliver of dull brass from its side. A shard of shrapnel from the bolt he gave her earlier that morning. It seemed like an eternity ago. As he slowly rotated it in the light, she saw that its metallic finish was marred by a rust colored blemish. Dried blood.

"I digress." He dropped it on the floor, the quiet clatter filling the room. "Perhaps you do not comprehend the magnitude of this. What you saw was a raindrop to the storm that could pass. If this isn't handled correctly, the results will not fail to be anything less than apocalyptic."

"Regardless of your roles in this, I am left to sort out this cataclysm in the making. So I ask you to make the utilitarian choice and assist me in this endeavor. Give me the benefit of the doubt once again."

All of team RWBY exchanged glances erratically; raised eyebrows meeting questing glances. Nobody seemed quite ready to make the commitment to helping Alpharius again. Seeing the impasse, Alpharius spoke again, more softly, but with the same steely edge.

"Consider it this way: I'm asking you to save your world. What answer do you want to remember giving me?"

Ruby stared at her feet, not quite sure of what to make of him. He openly admitted to killing someone, and that was normally enough to irrevocably condemn somebody to her 'bad-guy' list, but what he said afterwards made it all so much harder for her to decide.

There was supposed to be a binary divide between good and evil. That was the way she grew up. There was the Grimm, the people, and the walls of Vale that kept them apart. They made for a nice literal and physical dividing line between them. So far, everyone and everything she had fought against were undeniably bad. That made it easy to know where to point and shoot.

And here was somebody who just admitted to murder. So it should be clear cut, right? But he refused to act like a villain. Where was the arrogant monologue? Where was the villainous cackle as he revealed the rest of his diabolic plans? When they first met him he just spoke to them like anyone else. Granted, he was a little cold, and hard to get a read on, but after a while he seemed personable enough. Friendly even. He made that progress faster than Weiss did, although that wasn't really saying much. When he asked her to do him a favor, it felt totally normal. Like Yang asking her to save her seat while she went to get something.

Then team JNPR told them about what they found in the Emerald Forest.

It came as a real shock to Ruby that somebody who did such a thing could be so unaffected by it, and live their life without any regard to it. She was sure that she would never understand how something like that would be brushed aside in their conscience so easily. But what he was asking them to do struck a chord within her. People weren't irrevocably tied to one extreme or another: Blake was a perfect example. Was it so strange that a murderer would want to stop the end of the world? But the fact remained that he killed someone, which was completely different from what Blake did while she was involved with the White Fang. Or so she hoped.

She could imagine that her teammates weren't too happy with him at all. But quick glances their way revealed that they were just as conflicted as her. If Alpharius was really serious about what just happened, did they really have reason to disrupt him when Remnant's fate was at stake? But if they did help him again, they'd overlook a fellow student's murder. But what would a hunter do here? They were supposed to protect the innocent and helpless, but were they tools of vengeance?

"Ruby, we really ought to think about this one."

Weiss' hushed voice shook her from her reverie. She turned to speak with the rest of her team, but Alpharius cut in.

"I will not be able to keep him down indefinitely."

"Oh, for goodness-" Weiss grit her teeth before sending him another glare. "At least give us the liberty of discussing this in private."

"On the contrary, I think everyone on this planet has a vested interest here."

Weiss seemed ready to let loose with a scathing retort, but she thought better of it and turned to speak to the rest of them. Still, she spoke as quietly as she could.

"I don't think we should irrevocably commit to one side or another."

"I get that we should be careful about this, but he's painted a pretty clear picture. Is there one side or another?" Yang whispered back.

"Of course there is! You think Ozpin would have let him bring something like that into Beacon?" Blake countered vehemently. "He's clearly hiding something from them."

"Didn't you hide something from us too at first?"

"That's so different, I couldn't even begin to-!"

"But are we really allowed to make the call against him?" Ruby asked. "With this much on the line? I mean, he isn't bluffing. We all saw that… whatever it was."

She saw that they knew it deep down. They knew Alpharius wasn't lying to them about that, and however much they didn't like what he did, they couldn't let that get in the way of Remnant. Nobody seemed willing to speak against that point honestly and wholeheartedly.

With that in mind, she finally turned back to Alpharius.

"The way I see it; this wouldn't have happened if you told us what was in the box." Alpharius nodded slowly, nearly reluctantly. "And if we knew about what happened in the Emerald Forest…"

Ruby didn't quite know how to phrase it properly, but she wanted to say it anyway, even if it wouldn't make sense.

"I really want to help you. I really want to trust you, but how can I with all the half-truths you give us?"

"And I don't entirely trust you either, Ruby. But needs must. Remnant's continued existence is in the balance."

That knocked the wind out of her sails, but Ruby pushed on regardless.

"Please don't hide things from us, if you want our help."

Alpharius stood very still the middle of the room. Only his extra arms moved, rippling and rotating slowly around him. She remembered him calling them mechadendrites, and saying how he was in control of them, but to her, they seemed to have lives of their own, swimming around in the air in vague little patterns. As he stood there, she was struck by the joyless tableau he formed with the smoldering ashes at his feet, and the motionless body he aimed his gun at. His helmet tilted to the side slightly, as he finally gave her an answer.

* * *

The legionnaire knew he was close. He was at the cusp of turning this disaster into something he could work with. He'd walked headlong into a venomous diatribe, and with a relativistic argument he diminished their position against him. He turned the tables on their morals, simultaneously tearing down their reason to oppose him and obliging them to assist him.

He'd brought them to the table. To cleanly resolve it, all he had to do was give them an empty promise. He'd feed them misinformation just like the rest, and receive their cooperation in return. It would be quick. It would be efficient. It would be safe.

It would be distasteful.

He took in those wide soulful silver eyes, filled with equal parts hope and apprehension. Perhaps in another day and age they would have swayed him. But it was something else that gave him pause. He couldn't name it, but there was a nagging temptation in the back of his mind to reciprocate her gesture of trust.

As he considered it, he supposed there was no harm to be done. If he abstracted the situation, his answer here and now didn't truly matter. He could always reverse his decision at any time. It was harmless.

* * *

"I categorically refuse to let you, or anyone for that matter, know the entirety of my plans here."

Ruby felt absolutely crestfallen. She thought that after they'd gotten so far, Alpharius would come around and stop keeping them in the dark. Was the idea of working with her that repulsive? In retrospect Ruby realized _just_ what he'd turned around into after saving them.

It was like a punch to the gut. She was a terrible leader. She should have calmed everyone down so they could talk about it reasonably sooner. She should have stopped Blake from tearing strips off him. She should have-

"But," He said slowly, almost grudgingly. "I am willing to compromise."

Ruby barely managed to keep a gleeful grin off her face. She'd won!

"Should anything I do directly affect you, I will alert you."

No. That wasn't right. That couldn't be all.

She knew that he could stand to be more open with them than that, but how could she make it happen? It wasn't really much better than it was earlier, now that she thought about it. The spirit behind the suggestion was a step in the right direction, but she found the details wanting. She didn't like the idea of sitting around in the dark until Alpharius decided something was important enough to share.

A quick glance at her teammates found three expectant expressions looking right back at her. Right, she was the leader. It was up to her to call him out, as daunting as the prospect was.

"That isn't really going to solve the problem," Ruby tried to sound as diplomatic as she could. "Wouldn't it be more fair if we could reach out to you too?"

Alpharius seemed to consider it before one his mechadendrites reached out towards her. She clamped down on her gut reaction to step away. Just when she thought she'd gotten used to them. They were barely noticeable when they were idle, but when they suddenly moved with purpose? It unnerved her more than she would have liked.

"Your scroll."

She slowly produced it, saw it plucked deftly from her grasp, and had it returned to her moments later with an unlabeled number fresh in her contacts. It was several times longer than standard numbers, but her scroll told her it was a valid one.

"If you don't want me to regret this decision-" Alpharius' hand came to rest on her shoulder, the cold sting of the metal sending a shiver down her spine. "-don't disseminate this."

Ruby could only nod mutely in acknowledgment of his conditions. She supposed it was as good as they were going to get. Even if the recent events dulled the novelty of his appearance on Remnant, she had to admit that she was still incredibly curious about him. Maybe they'd be able to get him to open up more later.

"So, what now then?"

"For now, I only ask that you keep this quiet. I'll need some time alone with Amadeus."

"Won't the professors get here soon?"

"The staff?" Alpharius shook his head. "They think I'm on the other side of Beacon. They're probably distracted by a pict ghost of me in their surveillance system. We have control over this information for now."

"If we're going to keep this all quiet, you actually forgot something important." Yang waved at the smoking embers on the floor. "The door isn't exactly going to hide this mess anymore."

"Come now-" His voice practically dripped with sarcasm. "You wouldn't let something so trivial as a door stand in the way of our rapprochement? I'm sure Huntresses as capable as yourselves will be able to solve that problem."

Even if Weiss risked an aneurysm when she rolled her eyes, they got ready to leave. Now that she thought about it, a broken door was hardly the worst damage students had ever done. As for the huge box, she was sure they'd figure something out.

Ruby was perfectly happy to hand the worst of the situation off to him, but at the last moment Alpharius stopped her and beckoned her closer. Her team hovered near the door, not willing to leave Ruby out of sight with Alpharius.

"Does your team maintain their own gear?"

Did she let anyone else modify Crescent Rose? Did Weiss ever let anyone touch Myrtenaster? Who in their right mind would ever let somebody else have anything to do with the inner mechanisms of their very own weapons? Of course they looked after their gear! Who didn't? It was a matter of pride to Ruby.

"Of course!"

"Then ask… Blake and Yang to bring whatever paint they have back up in half an hour. Along with any maintenance tools the rest of you can spare on short notice. Subtly of course."

"Maintenance supplies I understand…" Ruby couldn't help but ask. "But paint?"

Alpharius looked down at her for a moment, before shaking his head a little. Alpharius knelt down on one knee near the other armored giant in the room. Amadeus, Ruby guessed he was called. Alpharius was only a little taller than her now. He traced a symbol scraped into Amadeus' black armor, one of hundreds. From a distance, they seemed completely innocuous, but under closer inspection they shimmered and shivered like a mirage.

The silver streaks of bare metal wrapped over the armor's surface like a web, as if etched into the paint by a deranged cartographer. The more Ruby looked at it, the more she could feel the undeniable purpose behind the crazed symbols. The power they constrained. The sway they held.

They were hybrid insignia to appease and entrap. She understood them on a deep, subconscious level. They were a call to powers hopelessly far from human comprehension, to the shadowy leviathans that lurked in the formless beyond. The symbols were a desperate admission of ignorance, of will surrendering to inadequacy. Of ambition giving way to despair. A longing, pleading call to anything that might hear it.

And the harsh gashes in the dark paint answered. Phantom voices spoke, letting them know there was a way to make up for that shortfall. That they too could make the symbols sparkle and shine. That they too could spin reality as easily as a spider spun silk. That there was a way to bridge the gap between their worlds.

And for this service, they could pay with the only medium of exchange between humanity and the denizens of the infinite, soundless ocean of souls.

They could pay in blood. Oh, so much blood-

Alpharius' rumbling voice brought her back to the present.

"This is the prototypical center-piece of a daemonic ritual circle. Not pleasant to look at is it?" Alpharius drew her gaze away from the symbols and looked her in the eye. "As you can see, it might not be best to carry around on Remnant. They are all weak scratches; the armor itself is unharmed. New paint should be able to erase them."

"Y-yes. Ok. Paint is a good idea." She was shaken more deeply than she was willing to admit by the experience, and was glad for the distraction. She nodded quickly and started heading for the rest of her team. "Anything else we should know?"

Alpharius looked pensively around the room for a moment, then tapped his gun.

"If you hear this firing, don't bother coming back."

"We haven't heard it before, is it like the other-"

She was cut off by Alpharius' low, dark chuckle. The static from his helmet's speaker cut into the sound, making him sound more machine than man. It wasn't quite the villainous cackle she expected, but Ruby supposed she'd make due.

"Believe me, Ruby. You'll know it if you hear it."

* * *

Night had fallen upon the fortress.

No fires burned, no banners flew.

All was silent as the castle coasted through the darkness.

Thick clouds swam past the base of the walls, lapping at the stone and steel silently, flowing and parting around the ramparts in an inky, billowing current. The full moon floated high in the clear sky, hung against the backdrop of a myriad stars.

The proud Imperial bastion was naught but a leaf caught in a river, drifting inevitably towards the vast nebula that rolled over the horizon. Towards an ominous spectacle that had driven men to madness. Towards a sight that spelt the end of sanity.

But what a sight it was.

It spilled over the edge of infinity, unraveling the fabric of space to weave itself together. The sheer depth of the colors cut across the immeasurable distance like a knife, mixing with the milky light of the moon against the dark clouds. Deep indigos spiraled out of nothingness, trapped spinning in a millennia long dance around their own gravity. Vibrant greens weaved in between the outstretched arms, robbing the void of its darkness. And carving through the center of it all, like a bolt of lightning, a vast stretch of the brightest, bloodiest red-

The sound of stone shearing drew Amadeus' gaze from the horizon.

His gauntlet traced the fresh fissure along the granite column. A silver strand ran through the cracks like quicksilver, sparkling in the moonlight. It wormed its way through the stone near-parasitically, crystalline mirror shards stabbing into the column at each bifurcation. As he followed the crack, he saw dozens more lancing through the foundation of the fortress, all converging towards a single location: The daemoness' tower.

Its peak soared as high as the tallest command spire. The once uncontested view into the void around the citadel was now challenged by this latest, unsanctioned addition. The architecture and aesthetics of it seemed to have made attempts to blend in with the rest of the fortress, but they were half-hearted pursuits. It was as if the daemoness was making the gesture out of courtesy to him, but wasn't truly bothered to truly complete the image. As his gaze traveled towards its base, he saw that the silver door was unlocked; left agar and inviting. Had the daemoness clawed him back into his mindscape for this? To dare him to enter her domain?

Perhaps it was an elaborate trap. Perhaps it was an illusion, to draw his attention away from something more crucial.

Perhaps, Amadeus thought, he shouldn't walk in.

Even as he stepped over the threshold, he wasn't quite sure why.

* * *

He found himself on a balcony overseeing a grand auditorium. The balcony was tucked into the side of the auditorium, one of the hundreds of boxes that lined the wall space of the massive room.

It was softly lit, the cream colored marble beneath him shining in the muted glow. Carvings in the alabaster walls were accented as their shadows swayed in time with the swinging lights. Red velvet upholstery was tastefully subdued, letting the patterns weaved into the smooth fabric gleam and glimmer in the half-light. Far below, the ground was a churning mass of dark silhouettes, seated figures covering the ground in a living carpet. Only the stage rose above the audience, a stony crag in the sea of humanity. Powerful lights burned through the gloom, infusing color and life into the stage, bright and bold against the dark and murky shadows of the room.

What struck him was the sound that filled the auditorium. There were voices, thousands of voices, but all tones remained hushed, restrained even. Despite the tens of thousands seated, it wasn't loud at all. The atmosphere practically dripped with anticipation, suppressed excitement charging the very air he breathed. Yet the voices only played second fiddle to the rest of the sounds.

From deep in the center of the room, the performers were preparing their instruments, making last minute adjustments to the tension of their strings, and re-familiarizing themselves with the harmonics of their instruments. As they prepared, they pulsed out a dissonant sea of noise. There was no rhythm to their actions, no beat or common score was being followed. It was an unrefined thing, yet not overwhelming.

The sound still had a deep, visceral quality to it that sunk into Amadeus' bones as he listened. Even with the tuneless nature of the noise, he could recognize the weight it carried to them. He could hear them ready themselves to pour their life and soul into their instruments. He could hear them brace for the moment where they would throw themselves over the void, and live for a single sole reason.

He felt that he could recall the name of this place, from a memory far in the past.

 _The Crucible of Sound. Lord Admiral-_

"-Vespasian's pride and joy." Amadeus finished for the daemoness, not bothering to turn. "I remember this place. You dredged up a fine memory. How do you intend to corrupt it, warp spawn?"

The daemoness strode up beside him and gazed out over the side of the balcony. It had clad itself in human form once again, rippling mist mirroring flesh and breath with an uncanny accuracy. She seemed to bask in the noise, closing her eyes as she leaned over the edge. Time and space perceivably warped around her as she drank in the atmosphere of the room. He felt foreign emotions brushing across his mind in the wake of the torrent of thoughts, tearing through his perception at a nearly incomprehensible speed. An agri-worlder's wonder at the scale of the concert, the apprehensive hope of a lover ready to propose, the razor edged preparedness of an experienced bodyguard. There were so many thoughts, all unbelievably detailed and staggeringly unique.

Letting out a soft sigh of contentment, she turned to face him again, the mirrored orbs in place of her eyes flaring in the darkness around them.

 _See? Not the command pulpit._

"And what do you expect me to make of that?"

 _You swore to reign sovereign next time we stood there. It just wouldn't do crush your oath so. It will be much more fascinating to see you work towards it._

"You tore me from real space just to tell me this? I doubt that." Amadeus turned away from her gaze, and stared into the darkness.

 _You didn't quite want to come back, did you? It's tedious and tiresome to converse with you when your perception is fettered by reality. Were you expecting anything in particular?_

"I have seen the malignant effects of Chaos first hand. I know what awaits me."

He knew of Gellar field failures transforming paragons of honor and loyalty into broken wrecks of their former selves. Contempt girded their souls, but that meant nothing as the Warp truly found a grip on them. Even as he granted them the Emperor's peace, he wasn't quite sure where he sent their souls.

"I know corruption can root itself deep enough in any mind, and corrode away at any barriers given enough strength and time. And I know that once it gains it, the Warp doesn't relinquish that hold idly."

"And you, daemon." Amadeus grimaced as he voiced the prospect. "You have sunk your claws deep into me."

The daemoness nodded, as if he were simply commenting on the weather, accepting his statement as an obvious fact of life that needn't be explained so deeply. She moved closer to him, her form seeming to shine and twist in the soft light. Amadeus pulled away from the railing, unwilling to be so close to her. He watched the wispy strands of light that made up her arm scatter as his gauntlet whipped through it. They orbited around each other, gyrating languidly until they collapsed inwards, reforming the previous illusion. If the daemoness noticed, she paid no heed to it.

 _Isn't this an impressive spectacle? All of the musicians here were gathered from around the entire segmentum. Cream of the crop is too broad a term to describe the scale. Of the millions upon millions of those who aspired to be here, only the very best remains before us. Every single one of them has lived their lives with this as their one true goal, their existences condensed into one single pilgrimage towards this moment._

 _And you know what draws thousands here to listen? Do you know why your inquisitor made a special exception, ordering his kill marine join his retinue in public? Do you know what force pulled souls into this room like moths to a flame? What kind of nameless glamor and appeal has lasted six thousand years?_

 _Each one is a soloist. Amongst the thousand odd masters on that stage, not a single one has ever performed amongst their equals. They spend their lives honing their skills to the highest level possible. Decades poured into practice. Untold hundreds of long nights thinking of nothing but their craft. And here they are, each so absorbed in their own performance, in beautiful melodic isolation from each other._

Amadeus watched as her form started to blur around the edges, the occasional sliver of silver forming out of nothingness only to disappear after flashing in the half-light of the glow-globes. The spectacle abruptly stopped as she brought a hand to her mouth, feigning embarrassment.

"Quite the tale. If only it had a benign purpose."

 _It has a purpose to me, I'll tell you that much._

"Wouldn't everything?"

 _I am no slave of Tzeentch. There is no grand plan to fulfill, but an infinitely branching tree of opportunities to observe. The musicians play the same piece, but there is no conductor to guide them. When they perform they always start ever so similarly. Yet as they continue, there are variations. Changes. By making marginally different choices from one another, all of them unerringly diverge from one another. They impose their own talents, tendencies and flaws upon the music. They leave the stamp of their personality and life upon their art, visible for those who can see it._

 _To most in this room, it was a single piece played in synchrony by prodigies. They couldn't even filter and listen to individual performances, the way your lyman's ear allowed you to. But to me, there is no blur. The music doesn't fuse together into a crude lump to be pried apart piece by piece. I hear every single one of their performances at once. I feel each minute change, shift and turn in each of their rhythms._

 _Each one a different possible continuation of the same original circumstance._

 _It reminds me of all else in a way. When I first came into being, I reveled in my power. I watched as stars blackened within my grasp. I listened as worlds screamed my name in devotion, even as they drowned in their own blood. I felt the sheer power of my being course through the warp, driving the ocean of souls apart with the force of my consciousness. Then, I began to contemplate this power that I embody. Even if hadn't been confined to you and the weapon, I would eventually have come to the conclusion that I must manifest something. Surely a daemon exists only as an expression of a certain aspect of mortal thought. There must be a certain desire I represent. A purpose. A will. If only I had found it sooner._

He had heard similar words from younger battle brothers and initiates who came to him for counsel on occasion. It was always the same thought conundrum, yet always fielded in a different manner. But from a daemon of all things?

"Now that's a thought." Amadeus mused aloud. "I would have thought you'd have considered yourself above existential crises."

She laughed. Soft as it was, it was a true laugh, not one of the hollow, mocking laughs that rang over the battlements right before they were seized from him. He stepped back as glass daggers swam through the air, forming out of the mist that slid off her form. As amusement radiated from her, she pulled herself together and faced him again.

 _Of all things- Far from it, I assure you! My existence is rather more concrete than yours, in fact. Such whimsical questions are wasted my kind. Asking why we exist is akin to asking why the void is empty: It is simply because that is its definition. We are born out of thought because we, on a fundamental level, embody it._

 _Perhaps I should be more concise. I was merely referring to the particular aspect of emotion and sentience that I believe I was born out of. I couldn't really describe it to you. Not without all of this._

She gestured over the balcony and towards the stage.

 _I can see why you hold it in so fond a place in your mind. It really is a useful memory. I just adore the sheer grandeur of it! They_ _sight read_ _a magnum opus as a status quo. Just a few will falter ever so slightly, but even that hair's width of a mistake would consign their dreams to be crushed on the final hurdle. Of course, most will play their heart out, and give the perfect performance, the emotion of the moment crystallizing itself as their life's crowning achievement._

 _But one of them will stand out. In all life, and in here even more so, there is always an above and beyond to strive for. Perfection can not only be attained, but surpassed. With their soul aflame, they will burn one more legend into the air of this chamber. As I watch them build their pyre of success, I know that to only observe them would be tantamount to letting them fail: I can raise them higher._

 _I can reach out to them and lend true power to this labor of their love. I can let them defy the very conventions of what they thought was possible, in a final blaze of beauty and glory._

"You almost make daemonic possession sound kind."

 _Oh, I harbor no illusions about it. It is no pretty thing that I do, but it is a magnificent one. Do you have any idea how entrancing it is to see an ember burn itself out? To watch a little red glow inch its way across one's soul and leave crumpling ashes in its wake? The way it sacrifices its permanence and longevity just to glow in the dark for a split instant? But why leave it a spark when I can make it a roiling inferno? I want to pour the most potent promethium upon their faintest flicker of potential. And I want to watch as the flames rise and blossom out into something altogether greater than what could have been. Even if ash is all that's left, surely the short moment of light makes it all worth it._

"You paint yourself a magnanimous observer, a benevolent patron of creativity, but I see it for what it is: Pasting gaudy words over a disgusting intent." Amadeus would have none of it.

"Before I entered the Emperor's service I was an under-hive child. Insects crawled everywhere in the wretched place. There wasn't a place that wasn't filled to the brim with them. Sometimes it seemed like they were all we had with us down in the gutters. Yet, amongst the detritus of civilization that fell so far down to us, there were often burnt-out glow-globes. We learnt that if you broke them in the correct manner, a fragment could become a rudimentary lens. Quite the radical discovery amongst us."

"Some saw this, and the first thing that came to their minds was how they could focus light upon the little creatures, and incinerate them. How they could watch them shrivel up and dry under the intensity, before cracking open and bursting. I think it not so odd that your whimsical tale conjured so petty and callow a memory."

She simply shrugged, a slight smile ghosting the edges of her lips. Amadeus knew better, but he was still irked by her utter non-reaction.

 _If you see it that way, perhaps you simply cannot comprehend me yet. It's the only way I can look into real space. Seeking out such souls is my calling. Most fundamentally, you could say that I just want to see what happens. Especially when I can make it ever so much more fascinating._

 _And so here we are, at the precipice of our own performance. What do we have before us? A pure, isolated world, an earnestly scheming tinkerer, and of course, you and I._

 _I could choose the branches we take, but where's the excitement in wielding that power? I wonder what you will do in the days to come? I do have an insatiable curiosity about what you'll do when given such power over others._

"Is that all I am to you?" Amadeus growled. "Just another soul condemned to your twisted cabaret? I'm not going to be another one of your faceless plays. I am the Emperor's servant, not yours."

 _Neither of us have a choice in the matter. Even if the full ritual was botched, you couldn't possibly have forgotten that we are still blood bound to one another. Your being is fixed to mine, and thus the power I grant you._

"Then I will refuse to use it. I'll hold what little ground I have within my mind."

 _Do what you will, so long as you make it interesting. I wouldn't have it any other way._

As she finished, a hush descended upon the massive room. The preparation was done, the musicians ready, and stage set. The daemoness pulled back from him, but not before pressing a small pamphlet into his hand. A program for the night.

 _And so it begins Amadeus. It's time you got back to real-space. Our newest acquaintance did do quite the number on you. Nothing I can't fix of course. I'm glad to be bound to this strand of fate with you. You'll make this a fascinating show Amadeus, especially considering what's coming up first._

She took a seat, nestling into the dark scarlet upholstery, and gestured towards the pamphlet in his hand.

 _If I were you, I'd look inside while I still could._

The lights dimmed further, leaving the stage marooned on a vast sea of darkness. With the last of the fading light, he opened the program to the first page. There were symbols blazoned across the entire schedule, none of which he recognized. A pair of crossed axes, a red rose, and a dozen others. He wasn't quite sure why, but the item at the top of the schedule caught his eye.

A three headed serpent.

* * *

Calling another meeting during Beacon's state of suppressed emergency was calculated choice on Ozpin's part. While everyone present was pulled away from potentially important tasks, their efforts would have been unfocused at best, and uncoordinated at worst. Ozpin considered it a simple investment of time.

It had already become clear that they couldn't beat, or even keep up with Alpharius in the mad scramble he set them in. With that in mind, Ozpin decided to concede, gambling that they could coordinate and create a long-term solution that would let them contain Alpharius and the potentially world changing baggage he carried with him. It made sense superficially, but only time would tell if it was the right choice.

But first, they needed to find a solution to a particularly disconcerting problem: Initially, they couldn't find Alpharius anywhere. Now they could find him everywhere.

As simple as that fact was, the technicians on campus couldn't quite explain _why_ that was the case. Until they caught up to him in the CCT, Alpharius moved around Beacon without appearing in any surveillance camera footage. But after Peter lost him, he was popping up everywhere in the camera feeds.

At first, it came as a relief, but any notion of that was soon discarded. His appearances never made sense, he was essentially teleporting around the campus, jumping from one monitor to another with utter unpredictability. Even as they watched, Alpharius turned a corner in one building to emerge from the stairwell of a completely separate one.

"Until I arrive, the best I can do is give my counsel, for whatever that is worth."

"It will have to suffice. Do you think that we ought to be doing anything different?"

Another benefit from the meeting was the fact that they'd finally managed to get through to Atlas' headmaster. Glynda knew that his assistance would be key at this point, considering the relatively limited manpower that Beacon had. Regardless of that, she was not pleased in the slightest by the trouble they had gone through to find out where the Atlesian general was.

She thought it was extremely improper of him to come to Vale at the head of a veritable armada. In light of what was unfolding, it just happened to be a fortuitous development, but it was the principle that irked her. That he brought such a significant force without knowing about Alpharius.

"Containing the situation was a very apt course of action. It might be difficult to execute, considering how unhelpful Alpharius has been, but it should be doable. Our main concern is that we've adopted a reactionary policy without any concrete expectation of what might occur."

So it seemed that they had proceeded along the agenda without her prompting. That was good. They all knew that they needed to be efficient here.

"Consider the extremes first. Best case scenario: Alpharius is overwhelmed by the pressures of adjusting to a new world, and turns to us for unconditional assistance in his endeavors. Not damn likely. If he hasn't broken down after a few weeks of this, it's safe to say that he won't crack at all."

"Worst case scenario: Alpharius arbitrarily decides that Remnant isn't fit for existence, and pulls something out of his pocket that completely annihilates the entire planet. Again, not likely at all, for similar reasons."

"I think we understand the scope of the possibilities, James." Ozpin said gently, preempting Glynda's harsher interjection. "What do you think is most likely?"

"More of this cat and mouse tedium." He replied disparagingly.

"When you met him in the forest, he set up the precedent of equivalent exchange of information in order to abuse it. At first it may have been fair, but once he arrived at Beacon, our equity in that deal was reduced by everything he could find in the CCT."

"So by combination of what he's done, and what he's told us, it's clear that he wants information. And he wants to give out as little as possible in return. It's… oddly safe of him actually."

He glanced at Glynda to see if such a diversion from the topic at hand would be tolerated. She nodded slightly, giving him provisional permission for the tangent.

"He's been very bold about certain things, but extremely cautious about others." He mused. "When he's in any real face to face confrontation, he really does match the field researcher that he makes himself out to be. But every so often, there are these tiny flashes of what he _really_ is; momentary glimpses of… something else entirely."

"When I looked at the transcript of Ozpin's interview with him, it was clear that he played that flawlessly. He never made a misstep that would put himself at any disadvantage. What bothers me is that I couldn't shake the impression that he was capable of playing it perfectly."

Ozpin nodded slowly, appreciative of the fact that somebody else had made the same inference as him.

"My interpretation of him is that he's absolutely brilliant, and he knows it. Alpharius clearly thinks that he can outpace and outmaneuver Beacon's best and brightest, and so far, he's right. He had the advantage of forcing Remnant to be the reactionary party, and he's used it to get even further ahead. He knows he's doing well, so he's keeping it interesting by making sub-optimal, but powerful moves. Flawless moves, instead of perfect ones."

"He terrorized teams sent after him, when he was never in any danger of being detected by them. He let himself be detained, when he could have approached Beacon later, on terms he had much more control over. And the message ' _Commendable attempt_ ' Glynda found after her first failed sweep? You see the pattern. I think that he's trying to amuse himself. It wouldn't be the first time a genius was bored by their own intellect."

"Do you realize what you're saying?" Bartholomew interrupted, scandalized by the general's words. "A student brutally exsanguinated, and you say he's trying to amuse himself? An entire new world to explore, catalog, and research, and you think he's _bored_?"

"Maybe bored is too strong a word. Idle perhaps. He's almost definitely got something planned that he takes more seriously, but he's terribly careful about whatever it might be. So where do we stand? As I said, we react to him. It's agonizing, but it's the harsh truth. Once I arrive, we'll stand on much firmer ground in that regard. Maybe we'll even be able to get on even terms with him."

To Glynda, Alpharius wasn't the same conundrum. She didn't quite agree with James' interpretation. In her opinion he would never wildly take unnecessary risks to amuse himself. He was bloodthirsty for sure, but there was a deeper contemplative edge to the brutality that she'd never seen before. She remembered sitting across from him in the Bullhead, watching as he examined the fresh blood running in gleaming rivulets through the joints of his gauntlet. Entertainment was the last thing on his mind.

In retrospect they should have seen it coming. The hints were there. They mistook his lack of hostility for goodwill, when there was only ambivalence. He practically lured the teams to him by forging that misconception. But at the end of the day, she knew that she had also approved sending the teams after him. At the time, the Emerald Forest seemed to have turned into a near-mythical place where teams would be galvanized as they hunted a far superior predator. Now she likened Alpharius to a firework: It was all an excellent spectacle until a misfire sent someone to their death in an agonizing inferno.

"Am I right to presume your scientists will be prepared to cooperate with Vale's? We do need to examine and properly understand any technology Alpharius might see fit to share with us."

It seemed that Ozpin had moved the discussion along to the next matter at hand.

"I'm sure that we can discard any question about collaboration at this point, but whether or not anything will come out of it is a different matter."

"Do you consider his technology to be that far beyond our comprehension?" Ozpin didn't seem entirely fazed by the idea, to Glynda's consternation.

"I hate to discredit our researchers, but if he were to 'gift' us technology, it would be like us giving a caveman a dust reactor. Unless we can convince him to invest a significant amount of time in breaking down each principle and concept behind the production cycle, as well as build up the necessary infrastructure for it, he might as well be carrying one-of-a-kind magical gear."

Ozpin stood very still for a while. Glynda could practically see the gears turning in his mind, in synchrony with the ones slowly spinning in room they stood in. Damn him and his unflappability. She couldn't understand how he balanced that cool calculation with his selfless care for the students. Proof that they weren't mutually exclusive was always a welcome sight.

"If Alpharius holds true to our arrangement, I will do what I can to gain that degree of cooperation from him. Even if he's been maneuvering to give himself an overwhelming advantage in such a deal, the promise that space holds is far too great to overlook. If he doesn't respect the arrangement-"

Ozpin looked the Atlesian general in the eye.

"-I will cede my authority over this particular debacle to you."

After the room contemplated that sobering thought, Peter decided to put his own two cents in.

"I suppose we ought to be glad that fate only sent one of them to drive us up the wall."

* * *

As Amadeus worked his way back into consciousness there were several clues that made his immediate circumstances all too clear to him. They were simple things. Things that any marine worth his salt would pick up on.

The quiet tap of a ceramite clad finger placing itself over a steel trigger. The two-tone hum of power armor on standby. The soft clatter of a storm bolter's fire control system shunting two bolts into place. Combined with the sight of a tall shadow standing above him, arm outstretched and aimed towards him, Amadeus knew that he was on the fatal end of the classical execution pose. He wanted to say something, anything to absolve himself and admit a wrong, but the words died in his throat.

As blurred memories returned to him, the stench of warp craft in air only further incriminated him. At least it was a marine, and not some semi-competent PDF commander that was here to deal this mess. Maybe the humans he had seen earlier had tipped off the local inquisitorial authorities. He couldn't blame them; he'd have done the same in their stead.

"Who are-" He began, before he was cut off by his executioner.

"All you need to know now is that I'm the one who locked up your armor."

On an impulse, he tried to push himself to his feet, only to find the servo motors and artificial muscle packs resisting his movements. It kept him virtually immobile, trapped within the confines of his armor. His lips twisted into a grim rictus as the philosophical parallel of being imprisoned within both body and mind presented itself. As if on cue, the looming pressure at the back of his mind began to reassert itself. It clawed at his mind in hail of white noise, ever so slowly eating away at his senses in an eroding tide.

"I am going to ask you questions." The marine's voice was oddly filtered, even accounting for the armor's voxcaster. He had only heard modulation like that from the most heavily augmented. A techmarine perhaps. It explained how his armor's machine spirit was overridden so quickly.

"When I ask them, I expect your answers to be as concise as possible. Anything superfluous will be your end."

Amadeus would have nodded, if he were able to. He wondered if the storm bolter would be able to accomplish more than his bolt pistol could. He doubted it.

"How many voices are there in your head?"

Amadeus winced as a particularly strong wave of razors washed over his mind. He couldn't hear the daemoness' voice, but he knew she was there, waiting to feed him dark whims and dark words.

"No voices."

"You know what I meant." Amadeus could hear the irritation building in the marine's voice, giving into spiteful rhetoric as his impatience grew. "What of shadowy figures? Mysterious pokes and prods? Little creatures sitting on your shoulders, telling you right from wrong?"

"Just one."

"What happened to the others?"

"How do you-" He was cut off by the sound of the storm bolter's firing pins pulling back. Odd that he still let it interrupt him, even when he knew how little it could do. He ought to cooperate, to serve however he could while the daemoness' control over him was lax.

"They were consumed. Swallowed up by the other."

"Consumed?"

There was actually a hint of curiosity in the voice. Or was it dread? Either way, it was unbecoming of a space marine, but who was he to say that?

* * *

That revelation didn't bode well for the legionnaire. While it did help him identify just what had decided to embed itself into Amadeus' mind, the short list didn't look good. There were a little over a dozen possibilities that his databases had dug up, and it probably wasn't the full extent of it. It had been a while since the Legion had last cracked open Titan's data vaults.

Returning his focus to the matter at hand, the legionnaire decided that there were a few candidates that he could immediately eliminate. The key fact was not only the ability, but also the will to consume other warp creatures. A psychic entity which feasted upon its own kin needed to be both powerful enough and motivated to do so. It let him eliminate greater daemons aligned to the Four; while they certainly were capable of such a feat, it was hard to imagine them melding their essences with that of other daemons.

Which left him the odd ones out. The unaligned and the pseudo daemons.

One of them caught his eye. It was a wildcard for sure, but the patterns all seemed to curiously line up with what he had seen. The legionnaire normally wasn't one to pursue the first solution to reveal itself, but he couldn't deny that it had merit, however outlandish it was. The records showed that one of Ahriman's protégés had coaxed it into a weapon, but surely they weren't so insane as to house it within an instrument of destruction?

He let his gaze fall on the cursed construct, as if his eyes could peel the bleached wraithbone apart and reveal the monstrosity buried within. He knew that it was a futile endeavor without the correct equipment and psykers, but he couldn't deny that there was a puzzling allure in its dark complexity. The geometric patterns etched into the murky silver of the casing faded into and out of the burnished steel, letting after-images turn and twist in the depths of his mind, building mysteries with the same promising rapture of staring into the inky immensity of the void.

The strings glinted with a dull metallic glow, blurring as shadows slid through them. He had seen similar things on daemon engines; dark crusted cables that pulsed and shuddered as screaming souls coursed through them, feeding energy to the corrupted war machine. He remembered how they shook and groaned as the daemon exerted its will over the warp stained metal and ceramite.

But those cables were a crude cudgel to the strings' power sword. The strings carried no less power, no less energy, no less sheer staggering maliciousness. But there was a fundamental difference in the raw will and expression that suffused the strings. It was like nothing he had seen before, nothing he had ever studied. Their dynamism was simply astounding; their refined and perfect function breathtakingly new. It was like gazing out over an abyss, expecting to find the monotony and emptiness that you _just knew_ was there, only to stare into the dark, and lock eyes with something looking right back at you.

A rune appeared and superimposed itself over his vision; a warning indicator from his augmetics.

 _Possibility of psychic tampering with biological hardware- Enabling independent operation of neurotransmitter regulators._

Machine over body. Steel over blood. One could be misled in such a way, but not the other. He felt his thoughts clear, even if he felt the smothering effects of the regulators keenly. Or so he thought. Studying one's own reaction to a change in brain chemistry was hardly a precise science. But one thing was for certain: He had nearly been made a trophy of. He'd do well to temper his curiosity with caution.

He was certain his theory was correct now. All the other possibilities lacked the subtly and nuance to their manipulations. It knew how to draw him into its fold, and appeal to his hopes and desires. Of course, many of the daemons on the list were capable of that; he wasn't so prideful as to imagine himself immune to their warp craft. But there was something atypical in the way the daemon's influence pervaded his mind.

Rather than a focused, questing tendril yearning to break into his mind, it was much more passive presence, completely indifferent to the success of its corroding touch. It was as if the daemon passively emitted a field in which one forsook the security of their soul. It reminded him of the unconscious, yet unapologetic way a star's gravity reached out and pulled objects to their annihilation.

He knew what it was for sure.

* * *

General Ironwood stared at the panel, as if he could will the call notification to pop into existence through concentration alone.

It wasn't working.

While he was hoping for an update from Beacon, he knew that it was unlikely to come. Alpharius really did have the timing of the devil. He trusted Ozpin and his staff to keep the situation from spiraling out of control, but until he got there, he was left pacing idly like an anxious teenager. He couldn't shake the feeling that they were missing something. When he reviewed the logs, it had been nearly an hour since anybody had seen hide nor hair of Alpharius, beyond the faulty security camera feeds. Before that, there were semi-regular sightings of him nearly every ten minutes.

"Anything on the ship's comms?"

"Nothing sir."

The captain seemed more stoic that usual, his trademark grim scowl fixed even more firmly in place than Ironwood ever thought possible.

"Something eating at you captain?"

"Hm." He pulled up a map of their route over the ocean. "They aren't too happy about giving us meteorological forecasts. There haven't been any major Grimm incursions recently either. They don't see us as necessary. Won't like us being in Vale."

"We can't help that. The council has given their approval of the expedition, and we have no time to waste gradually justifying our transfer."

The captain nodded curtly, but he seemed far from satisfied with the answer. But Ironwood knew him. He wasn't one to be bothered by what civilians thought of his presence where he was deployed.

"Speak freely, it's important to address these things before we arrive."

He knew he struck true when he caught a glimmer of appreciation in his eyes. Naturally, it was smothered within moments by an appropriately ill-tempered grumble.

"We're practically on a skeleton crew. I realize that we need to test the robotics breakthroughs, but a regularly scheduled patrol would be the better choice, not a special deployment like this. A warship needs more actual crew members to function optimally. We're little more than cargo haulers without them."

Ironwood bristled. Did people under his command really think that he wanted to gut the core of his forces just like that? As if he could help that there were special stakeholders holding proven forces back in Atlas, saddling them with these excuses of autonomous infantry, claiming 'progressive research methods'.

"That's the mission we have to work with captain. It has to be done just so, lest we risk the wrath of those above us. Like everything else, we deal with it, and move on. It's beyond our control."

* * *

"It is quite a fundamental concept: names provide a means for control, control in turn creates power. Power which you desperately need to compete with her influence. Without a way to keep her in check, the possession will hollow you out, body and soul. Even the constitution of an Astartes cannot adequately contain a psychic entity of her magnitude without burning out."

"A name is more than just a handle, or a safety measure. By using a daemon's name not only do you gain a measure of control, but it also acknowledges them. It shows that you are willing to sit across the table, so to speak, and they can be appeased by that. Give her a name, and you can level the field. Play into her hand, after all, it's hardly in her best interest for her host to collapse in on itself. If anything, she would want to keep you in prime form, as a trophy to flaunt. By offering up a portion of your consciousness for her to inhabit, you can blunt her influence by shackling her anonymity."

"I cannot."

"You can make any name, it doesn't-"

"I know its name."

"Its true name?" It would be a terrifically unexpected boon if that were the case. "Then use it, for goodness sake, and end- "

"It has given me a name it wants me to use. I shall not play into its hand."

The legionnaire blanched. He had just spelt it out for him, it was the only correct course of action. Even a loyalist would know enough to save their soul. Amadeus was losing his patience, a snarl edging into his voice. Most likely a sign that the daemoness' presence was slowly dissolving his sanity.

The psychic activity wasn't as intense as it was when he first arrived, but it was definitely there. The breath that came out of Amadeus' helm was heating the ventilation grills white hot, even as sheet ice crept its way over his armor. But that didn't explain his inability to utilize the simple stratagem he outlined for him.

"It is not fundamentally complex; it is a time tested gambit. Surely you aren't so stubborn as to…"

"You ask too much. You would have me prostrate myself to it? What would it mean to save myself if I give up such a crucial moral principle? I cannot and will not humanize so corrupt an existence! Am I to surrender and shake hands with a being that sees itself as the ring master to our reality's circus? A creature that exists purely to toy and meddle with fates?"

Perhaps he should have expected the usual tedious puritanical stance on moral decay. Trust an Imperial Fist to be prideful, and above all stubborn. Still, he needed to stabilize Amadeus; he wouldn't be able to work on restructuring the planet whilst constantly glancing over his shoulder to see if the space-time continuum had shredded itself. He wouldn't give up while he still had tactics to try.

"Victory costs brother. Be it material, blood, or something less tangible, a sacrifice must be made to achieve it. You have to be willing to give something up for it, Amadeus. You know that just as well as I do. You know that you should consider yourself lucky that your victory will cost you only pride. So take it! I've told you of our circumstances; an exorcism is a long way off. This is the only feasible long term solution."

A sullen silence was his only answer. Icicles began to form along the edges of Amadeus' armor, growing unnaturally quickly. The legionnaire was confounded by it; had the loyalists discovered an entirely new level of sheer uncompromising obtuseness? What would he have to do to get through to him?

There was another option, but he would lose what little of Amadeus' trust he had to begin with. Then again, so long as Amadeus sealed and stabilized the blood bond with the daemoness, could he complain? As he had just stated earlier: Victory costs.

"Let me share something with you brother. Last time I needed to work with a Fist, I found that we weren't without our differences. The different philosophical outlook, standards of dignity and honor, et cetera. But I did discover that we shared something: The unrelenting conviction to see something done with brutal efficiency. An undeniable will to be the last ones standing once the ashes settled."

"He was in command of a relatively large contingent, tasked with taking a world for the Emperor. But the resident xenos were burrowed deep into their basalt citadels, shrouded by radiation storms and poisoned air. On top of that, razor hail that could breach Astartes war plate was more often a danger than it wasn't. Gravitic artillery hammered Imperial lines constantly from hidden fortresses. Time and time again marines went down to the surface never to return.

"The projections indicated two decades of high attrition warfare before compliance would be achieved. The projected material cost alone was equal to six years Mars' production, and don't even imagine the predicted casualties! So naturally, I approached the commander with an alternate solution."

"Much like the one I'm offering you, he had to give up something very precious to him. To do something immeasurably against his values. To put a bloody stain on his honor rolls for eternity. But he did it. He launched cyclonic torpedo after cyclonic torpedo until the planet ripped itself apart, Shattering the ground into a debris field and expelling the atmosphere. At what cost? The bodies of five hundred marines were lost to void, and their gene-seed unrecovered. And what did he gain? That asteroid belt still produces obscene amounts of adamantium to this day, and is a major logistical nexus of its sector."

"Five hundred marines? I'm no librarian, but I know my chapter's history. Such a calamity would be well recorded. What was the name of this world?"

Suspicion was rearing its head so it seemed. Not that it mattered; the legionnaire had already committed to the plan of action. It was time to open his grip, and let the dice roll.

"Originally it was called Twenty-Eight Seven, but now it goes by the name of the Minaxis asteroid field."

"Minaxis? But that happened in the Great Crusade, a combined action between us and…"

To the legionnaire the moment of stillness and silence was absolute. It lasted for less than half a breath, but it drew itself out over eternity, letting him see frost crystallization stopped in its tracks, and how the air ceased rippling about in convection currents. The weaving patterns that swam their way across the surface of the daemon weapon decelerated, revealing layers upon layers of complexity that swirled soundlessly into each other.

How everything in the room hung on the edge, how tension crept over the precipice of no return as connections clicked into place for Amadeus, discovering who had been behind him the entire time.

Ice cracked off of his war plate with the crash of glass shattering. As it hit the ground around Amadeus' hands, it billowed up into a fog instead of melting, psychic lightning dancing across his armor. Servos and motors quietly groaned as they strained to hold him in place, their noise slowly drowned out by the low grumble of the fusion reactor powering them.

It was an impressive feat that Amadeus could put that level of stress on the power armor, one that belied his strength and will. It only confirmed the legionnaire's suspicion that he would be completely outmatched in close combat with Amadeus. Still, the legionnaire took the opportunity to move around him, revealing the marks and badges of the Twentieth legion.

"Overpowering artificer armor? Don't you think somebody else is lending you that strength brother?"

He tapped Amadeus' skull helm with a mechadendrite. It was an easy lie to make, especially considering how close it might have been to the truth. Regardless, it gave Amadeus pause, even if righteous conviction burned in the crimson lenses as he snarled back.

"You will not call me brother, traitorous bastard."

Not the worst he had been called, but the sheer hatred in his voice definitely ranked amongst the best. Filing away the recording for later classification, he continued.

"The commander on Minaxis was Rogal Dorn himself. He decided to take that victory, to bear the cost on his honor."

"Cherry picking! If you were to choose any other of Dorn's deeds, you would know that Minaxis was a single instance, an anomaly-"

"And you only need that single instance too, brother. A single sacrifice to keep the daemoness in check, and to protect this new world."

The legionnaire saw a little alert flash in his visor display, indicating a closing time window. He was cutting it close. He needed to leave soon, but it didn't matter: He had done all he could up to this point.

"Know that the fate of a world may lie in your hands, Amadeus. I can only watch from afar now; you are in uncharted waters. Your armor will unlock soon after I leave. I trust you to do what you must."

With that, he turned to stride through the smoldering doorway. The dice were rolling. He knew where they would land.

* * *

As Amadeus watched the Warpsmith exit, his grimace only deepened. Trust his luck to land him in the custody of another one of the archenemy. His words bore reason and merit, but the most insidious ones always did. In the end, he knew that his armor would stay locked, and he would die trapped twice over. Once within his armor, and finally within his mind. A typical death at the hands of Chaos: alone and ruined.

As he thought, a presence bubbled up from the back of his mind. Unbidden, and unwelcome, it pushed its way to the front.

 _He's quite the conductor isn't he? He might be growing on me; perhaps I should dedicate something to him._

"I thought it was difficult for you to reach me here."

 _Oh, but I couldn't help myself. And I'll have you know; of the trillions upon trillions of ways this could play out, your armor unlocks in all of them._

'I'll believe it when I see it.' There was a wry amusement in the daemon's words, as if she were all too pleased to see what was unfolding.

 _Ah, but I am! Isn't it exciting? Besieged on a far flung world, the alien without, the chaotic within, no support but that which the archenemy is granting, and moral choice to make in order to either prolong it all or send everything up in flames. Well, I guess when I put it like that, it sounds like business as usual, doesn't it?_

 _But it isn't really a dilemma_ _,_ _is it? Isn't the suspense wasted on the audience? Everyone knows what choice the hero will make in the end, don't they?_

 _After all, if he just went with the other choice, whatever would they do with the rest of the run time?_

A dull series of clicks and ratcheting noises sounded throughout his armor, the machine spirit bending to his will once again. With a sigh, he picked himself up, took off his helm and glared at the guitar with less conviction than he would have wanted.

'Damn you, Enshattered."

* * *

The bustle of students moving back in created a particularly distracting din for Blake, even if it wasn't necessarily loud. The combination of hearing snatches of conversations without context, random bumps and bangs, and the occasional muffled scream played havoc on her concentration.

If it weren't for the fact that she was trying to kill time, she might have been more content to be surrounded with the familiar, busy atmosphere. Perhaps it would have been mildly reassuring, that despite Alpharius' surprise visit, the rest of Remnant was still plodding along, business as usual.

But the fact remained that she wanted to read while she waited. She had found a fair few secluded places in Beacon just for that purpose, and had even mentally mapped out several routes between classes that coincided with those private little hideaways, but it just so happened that none of them were close to busy corridors.

Which brought her to why she was lurking in the hallway. She was waiting for Alpharius. Of course, she'd cooled down after she realized he hadn't quite commandeered their team, but the way he just dismissed their main problem with him out of hand irked her. Not to mention the apathetic and cold mentality he'd revealed.

With all the other thoughts on her mind, she was barely skimming the book. She closed it, and cast her gaze down the hallway unashamedly. It was a little too vanilla for her tastes anyway.

As if on cue, Alpharius turned the corner, moving like oiled clockwork. When he saw her, a shiver ran down her spine. She thought that she had gotten used to the sight of him. Between the unnaturally precise way he carried himself and the otherworldly presence he exuded, it would have been bold to claim that she was unaffected, but she was certain that it wasn't either of those that set her on edge.

When he caught sight of her, she felt pinned for the briefest of moments. She imagined that it was the sort of dread an insect might have felt as it caught sight of a drop of sap, too late to escape, but just in time to know it would suffocate in amber.

Shaking off the feeling, she stepped out in front of him, ready to speak up. He slowed down to a stop a step from her, staring down at her patiently, the same way a spider might have looked at a trapped fly exhausting itself with its death throes.

"We need to talk."

After a short moment, he opened a palm and gestured to his right.

"Walk with me."

* * *

The legionnaire decided that he had enough time. His chronometer told him he had a little over ten minutes if he maintained his current pace. Surprisingly, Blake was able to keep up with him, even though it was clear that her usual walking rhythm was jarred by the abnormal speed.

"Well Blake, you've gone out of your way to find me. What can I do for you?"

She glanced up at him, before looking back down the hall they were walking down. It amused him that she was so subdued after her initial forthright declaration.

"Well, I really don't know-"

"This is about the Faunus isn't it?"

It was an odd word to the legionnaire. Butchered words were common on isolated worlds like Remnant, and its origin was obvious, but that didn't change the fact that it was an unwieldy label to him.

"Yes, I guess so. I'm just trying to wrap my head around your whole 'mutant' spiel."

Now that was an ever odder thought. To him the extreme phenotypic variation displayed by the Faunus made the distinction obvious. If they were a completely separate species as the deluded academia of Remnant claimed, then their appearances would have had much less variation. Also, repulsive as the thought was, the fact that interbreeding with humans was possible put the last nail in that particular coffin.

But the other facts pointed in a completely different direction. The ridiculous variety and the specific nature of the changes to their appearances suggested interference. Not direct design, but not random mutation either. When he put it that way, it all practically screamed with the touch of the Warp.

"I came to the conclusion that physical characteristics of the Faunus are simply too diverse to merit anything other than that classification. Not only that, but the manner in which the presumed genetic alterations present themselves-"

"That's beside the point!" She let out an exasperated sigh, reining herself in after the vehement outburst. "What I'm trying to say is... Well, look here, you're not from Remnant right?"

Perhaps a more passive standpoint would be in order. He nodded in comprehension, waiting to hear her out first. Her explanation might prove entertaining, or perhaps even enlightening. If he was lucky; both.

"When you said that back in our room, there was something beyond pure utilitarianism, and don't bother denying it. What I want to know is why? You've never even seen a Faunus before you came here, what do you have against us? Where does that hate come from?"

Where did it come from indeed? He never really needed to explain anti-mutation sentiment before; it was a rather generally understood principle, even by other races. He was having trouble forming a verbal explanation, never having had to give one before.

Perhaps it was old ideals dying hard. Were they dying at all for that matter?

"It isn't quite hatred. One could say that it is disdain born out of pity. By definition, mutations are the results of little moments of subatomic misfortune, or arcane tampering from beyond reality's veil. It is pity for the life that was irrevocably changed by a lucky radioactive particle, or by the howling of daemons. Pity for the human that was never fated to be, and disdain for the crude reflection in their place."

"You _pity_ us?" Blake looked like she had bitten into something sour. "You pity us because we weren't _lucky_ enough to be human? And to go as far as to call us a _crude reflection_ -"

"Come now, Blake."

He made a conciliatory gesture with his hand, in an attempt to draw less odd looks than was strictly necessary. It wouldn't do to be bogged down by the staff again, and have his entire schedule reset to square one. Blake was still fuming, but at least she was limiting her anger to a piercing glare up at him.

"That isn't to say they can't be useful. Valued even. Their circumstances can give them specific roles and duties that would allow them to serve better in certain places than humans could. But that isn't to say that they are simply superior in that one aspect. No, even the warp doesn't create imbalances like that. There always is a distasteful trade off. Let us take you for example, Blake."

Her eyes widened and a hand shot up as if to make sure her bow was still in place. Was she so self-conscious of those? It mattered not. He let his targeting cogitator take a classification scan. Within milliseconds, semi-processed data made its way to his visor, letting him process it on his own while the logic engine made its own deductions.

"Your most notable macro-biological deviation seems to be your extra set of ears. You undoubtedly possess greater balance, and possibly, improved hearing. On the down side, you also have another set of ear drums to burst."

"Now assuming that your genetics have been restructured with feline properties, it isn't unreasonable to predict increased reflexes, muscle density changes and altered nerve structure. But all that comes along with dietary and metabolic changes that shift quite far away from the optimum."

"And then we get to possible psychological changes. A whole slew of them. Most of them unlikely mind you, but still, they're there. Social apathy? A delicate love-hate relationship with self-reliance? There must be something fundamentally inhuman about your psyche, since after all, isn't that what your kind pride yourselves on? You are forced to twist a flaw into a feature, and are left brandishing poor evolutionary optimization as specialization. A sad plight by any reckoning."

"So yes, I believe that the 'hate' was born out of pity for your situation. Perhaps over the years it has morphed and mutated in its own way, molded by zealotry and bad experiences into something fiercer, something that makes it all too easy to put a mutant down."

Throughout his explanation, Blake's expression changed from furious and spiteful, to guardedly suspicious, to finally become completely unreadable. Had he gone too far? Perhaps the mindset of 'the boldest methods are the safest' didn't hold water after all.

"Is that what's waiting for us up there?" Blake whispered. "More hate and distrust that we never did anything to earn?"

' _There's worse things waiting'_ , the legionnaire was tempted to reply, but he held his peace. Blake didn't seem finished.

"Maybe you're right. Maybe we are worse at some things, but we're still good at others. Is that so wrong? Does that justify treating us like we're second class citizens? Is the idea of accepting the way we are impossible? Why can't you see us as equals?"

His answer hovered on the tip of his tongue. ' _Because fundamentally, you aren't equal._ '

But he couldn't say that. He could afford to be direct and concise, but not honest. He had yet to find a way to monitor Amadeus in an equally subtle way, so he couldn't risk cutting them off completely. Not yet at least.

"It's the way things are up there. Perhaps I'm influenced by that ethos, but I prefer a case by case approach with acquaintances."

Seemingly appeased, she fixed a grim smile upon her face.

"Hmm. At least you try to rationalize it. That's more than most do on Remnant."

She looked up at him, her eyes dead serious, filled with a peculiar passion.

"If Ruby is going to insist on having you around, I'll have to change your mind eventually. You can't be as stubborn as Weiss after all."

There it was again. The complete sincerity of her promise, however imperious, was nearly endearing. They surprised him in ever so odd ways, these four.

"Will you now?" He mused aloud.

He saw Blake's initial confidence wane slightly as he spoke, but she still held his gaze. But by now, he had a time deficit to make up, and needed to put an end to this. He reached down and placed a hand on her shoulder. She tensed, and her eyes darted to his gauntlet, but she didn't flinch away.

"A word of warning Blake, you'll find Amadeus' mind far less open than mine."

* * *

As Yang slowly made her way up the final step to their floor, she swore never to move two paint canisters at the same time ever again. They weren't heavy per se, but they were unwieldy. Much too large to move anywhere without the proper handles that the suppliers so thoughtfully neglected to add to the design. Normally, it didn't matter too much, since a policy of one person per canister worked perfectly fine whenever they needed to be moved. Yet, for some reason Yang was alone in her backbreaking endeavor, as if her team had deserted her in this hour of need.

Then she remembered why she was alone. While she hadn't really forgotten it, it was more like she was suppressing the thought. It was a touch shameful for her. She had abandoned Weiss and Ruby to a grisly, gory fate. A violent torture that should never be wished upon anyone, but to avoid it yourself.

She left them to the ministrations of a royally pissed off Professor Goodwitch.

In hindsight, they should have waited. They had all come to the conclusion that the door problem would best be solved if they just 'owned up' to it quickly. Students breaking Beacon property was definitely commonplace, even if it was discouraged. So what was a smoldering door compared to everything else that had happened? If they were lucky, it wouldn't even go on the temporary records.

So armed with a short, embarrassingly believable story, they looked for someone to turn themselves into. And lo and behold, the Doomharbinger-of-the-Apocalypse herself came out of some sort of meeting with the rest of the senior staff. Ruby, bless her little soul, decided to _ignore_ the sleep-deprived-thousand-mile-death-stare, and skipped right up to her to report their alleged wrongdoings.

Yang shuddered at the memory. Her dressing downs were the stuff of legends. Not the sort that were carved into statues and idolized by children. No, these were the kind that were told in hushed voices, with plenty of liquid courage to go around. They were talked about like industrial accidents with rotary saws; where you struggled to decide whether the victim was stupid enough to have deserved such a horrific fate.

To Yang, Professor Goodwitch had it down to a fine art. It wasn't just the sheer amount of vitriol and razor sharp sarcasm that she could summon on a whim. It was the way she knew _exactly_ how to make you regret everything you did to deserve this treatment. It was the way she could keep her voice so soft and reasonable, even while the words tolled like gargantuan funeral bells inside your head. It was the way she dropped ever so subtle hints for everyone else watching, daring them to do something even more ridiculous next time, simply so she could up her game.

Needless to say, when Yang saw Professor Goodwitch pump the metaphorical shotgun, and center three-quarters of RWBY in her crosshairs, she got out of there _fast_. A quick 'You've got this handled, I'll run ahead and grab the paint', and she managed to escape.

She liked to think that it was a smart move too. It would only be a few hours before the bulk of the student body started moving back in, so the more time she could get for Alpharius' buddy to clean himself up, the better. Or at least that was what she hoped as she drew closer to their doorway.

* * *

As the methodical rhythm of work drew to a close, the small room settled into silence, letting him examine his work. Parts of his re-consecrated armor were laid out in front of him, the drying paint sheening in the midday sun.

He had to admit to himself that he felt a measure of ease seeing Dorn's fist against the unblemished black of his station, the symbol restored to its rightful splendor. But there was a part of him that cynically denounced a few fresh layers of paint as a paltry veil to cover the scars that heretical scribbles left upon his honor.

"Mind me asking something?"

He was surprised by her, ever since she came back to the room. She returned into the maw of danger without so much as a second thought, carrying herself with an air relaxed confidence that spoke of complete ease around him. She was absolutely foreign to him. Perhaps in another time and place, the absence of subservient awe and groveling would have been a welcome change, but here and now, it only served to remind him of how far the Imperium was.

Still, they had managed to build an efficient working relationship as they restored his armor with the supplies she brought with her. He saw little reason to see it atrophy. If anything, her curiosity was understandable. In her place, he wouldn't have even taken the time to see if he'd consent to it.

"You have my candor."

"What was- _is_ that?"

She pointed at Enshattered, the light-hearted confidence in her voice wavering as the steel strings gleamed, a malignant inner glow revealing itself in response to the girl's attention. How Amadeus wished he could have forgotten the daemoness. True to the traitor's word, acknowledging Enshattered's name smothered the worst of the experience, but he could always feel her lurking in the shadows of his mind, every so often testing her marionette's strings ever so delicately.

He could feel her pull one now; the tension pulling at the back of his mind transmitting a distant insistence that her host should fulfill its duties. He ground his teeth, but he picked up the daemon weapon nonetheless, watching the kaleidoscopic colors ripple under the silver surface where his fingertips touched it.

"Consider it my ball and chain."

He shuddered as he slung the daemon weapon over his shoulder. He hated how natural it seemed, how comfortably the sculpted wraithbone and warp wrought steel rested against his back.

"I guess I'll have to make do with _that_ non-answer, but it seems like Alpharius helped you out with all that, what with the lack of creepy lights and sounds, and-"

"You ought not trust him."

Perhaps it was impulsive of him. Even while he spoke, he realized what little merit his word held over the traitor's in her eyes. Still, he was obligated to speak against the 20th Legion's interests, regardless of how it may have sounded coming from him.

"Eh... He seems solid enough. We've made a deal with him, and he's stuck to it so far." She shrugged before reclining back onto her bed. "Mind you, before the deal we made, back while he was in the forest, what he was doing was pretty messed up-"

"Yang, I don't think you entirely comprehend the nature of threat he poses."

"How so?"

How indeed? He couldn't call for them to fight Chaos out of a moral obligation. Not outside the Imperium, and especially not in his current predicament. A more rational route would be to explain the precise nature of his situation, and the role the alleged 'Alpharius' played in it, but that would take too long, and was as likely to paint him as the enemy as it was Alpharius.

So what could he do?

"The organization that Alpharius belongs to is the type to send even allies into battle blindfolded. You must realize that people are little more than pawns to him; expendable pieces to be sacrificed on a whim."

"Well, he sorted you out didn't he? He hasn't come off as somebody quite like that."

"That-" Wood splintered and cracked as gauntleted fingers bit deep into the edge of the table. "-is completely irrelevant here."

Of course the legionnaire was taking advantage of how unguarded this world was. It was infuriating how ill-prepared they were for this kind of danger. And their blind trust of him? To think that crude shell of a marine would merit any degree of it over him, by dint of a simple head start of all-

Her gaze had lost its relaxed gleam.

She was tense, staring at him with wary amber eyes. The grim alarm that she exuded reminded him eerily of his first sight of her; when Enshattered cursed his eyes to see how crippling panic spilt off her in waves. How her bright, burning soul held it in check with misplaced awe, and a gut instinct to hold her ground in the face of a roiling miasma of horror.

Amadeus knew in his bones that his current state paled in comparison to what he'd forced her to witness when Enshattered tore his consciousness from its anchor in reality. Still, it stung in a different way to have his senses fully intact to behold his degeneration in the eyes of the Emperor.

The table edge he once gripped in suppressed anger now clipped through his fingers as if it were nothing more than air. He flickered like a damaged holo-picter in a shelled trench. He brought his hand before his eyes and watched as psychic frost sprang off his digits, like sparks from molten steel.

Enshattered's ability to control and influence his body and soul far outstripped his. He would be a fool to think otherwise at this point. It took considerable concentration and presence of mind on his part to keep from flying too close the metaphorical sun, even if it's pull was far less intense. To say he was at a disadvantage in the protracted struggle he was in for was an understatement if he'd ever heard one. It was hopeless to imagine that he wouldn't burn up eventually.

But he was obligated challenge her. Any other option simply wasn't up for consideration.

"Are you alright?"

Of all the things to ask him. In her eyes he shimmered between an absolutely alien behemoth of ceramite and steel, and a flickering phantasm of insanity. And the first thing she uttered was an inquiry after his well-being.

"It will pass."

He closed his fist, willing himself to root deeper in his corporeality. He decided to draw their attention to something less taxing on his mind.

"Our labor seems to have paid off."

He picked up a pauldron, running a hand over the freshly painted iconography, taking in the smooth glaze that replaced the disordered array of scorches, soot, and blood circles. He fixed it back in place, the heavy plate covering the blast-carapace and powered frame of his armor. His shoulder shook slightly as his armor reconnected and locked to it, the familiarity of the feeling easing him into the monotonous task. He picked up a second pauldron and started to repeat the process.

"Our labor? You hardly let me touch a thing."

Yang hefted a vambrace, and brought it over to him, one of the few parts he let her restore. Her cheery demeanor seemed to have returned, but for all its honesty, it was strained, as if she wasn't entirely comfortable to change the subject. He couldn't blame her.

"Tradition dictates that marines attend to any iconography themselves. My position entitles me to a great deal of it."

"I wouldn't have thought you'd be a stickler for that kind of thing; considering all your fancy technology."

"If anything, attention to such things becomes more important as we advance. Even if only to remind us of how far where we've come."

It was a practiced answer he had given to many initiates in the past. He even had an example ready. Amadeus tapped a relatively simple arrangement on his armor; a laurel wreath clenched in a fist above a skull.

"We no longer have records for what this symbolized. Our reach for glory for the sake of the fallen? Proclamation of the union between knowledge and martial skill? There are dozens of interpretations. But what remains constant is this: Whoever wore this armor before me also painted this upon their war plate. While the conclusion we came to may be different, both of us fought and bled for it."

Lilac eyes remained fixed upon the symbol for a moment, before meeting his gaze.

"So what do you think it means?"

The vambrace she handed him clicked into its locks, the final piece of his armor fitting seamlessly into place against the rest of the plates.

"Perhaps it is an allusion to ancient Terran chronicles. Of a slave tasked to whisper reminders of human mortality into the ears of generals of old, even as he lifted their laurels."

As his now reassembled armor slowly settled into a near silent hum, Amadeus let his words hang in the air, letting Yang interpret it however she would.

"You _are_ human, right?" She asked quietly, as if reluctant to break the silence that had settled between them.

She trailed off as he stared back at her, considering his response. Was he human? It was a familiar debate that Amadeus never saw any point in participating in. Still, as a chaplain he often mediated such discussions between his battle-brothers and had heard many a convincing argument for either case. But the most precise and correct explanations were too long winded to be shared with Yang, at least not without agonizing over even more conundrums.

"I am human, in as much as one might describe a sword as steel." He decided to settle with that, even with the glaringly obvious flaws in the analogy. "On a fundamental level, steel is the main constituent part of the sword, but it underwent a process to change it into a tool with a purpose, rather than featureless bullion."

"I- I suppose that makes sense then." It didn't if her tone was anything to judge by. She seemed to be grasping for something she couldn't quite verbalize.

"It was just something that made me a little curious, since Alpharius said that something in the air wasn't good for him. It's a little weird to me that you guys need to keep your helmets on while we breath the air just fine."

So that was what it was all about. After so long around the scion of the 20th, she must have wanted more than just talk. All he had given her was a remarkably tenuous explanation, and nothing tangible as proof of his humanity. What little concrete evidence she had of him pointed far in the other direction.

But all that mattered little in this instance. Assuming his chaotic counterpart hadn't left his own armor, the blast-carapace pressure seal he was wearing was the closest anyone on Remnant had come to seeing an Astartes in the flesh. Perhaps his visage would be enough to quell her curiosity. The machine spirit of his armor told him that there wasn't anything that would kill him in the air. Perhaps that wasn't the case for the traitor.

He unlocked his helmet from the pressure seal with a practiced motion, feeling air rush inwards as the minor pressure differential equalized.

In a way it reminded him of his mindscape, in the way his sight was accosted by the intensity and depth of the world. He felt that it was different; that what he saw wasn't the result of Enshattered flooding his senses with false input. Something about the world was _off_. He had yet to decide if it was _wrong_ , for what he was seeing danced along the gray line between irredeemably warp corrupted and fantastic beauty.

On the other hand, he got the distinct impression that Yang was underwhelmed by what she saw. There was nothing remarkable to look at after all; just a burn here, and a scar there. Cold grey eyes, and close cropped hair. He kept his helmet on in battles which, to many of his brothers' awe, spared his head the injuries they so often received when they elected to discard the vital piece of armor.

"Did you expect something else?"

"Yes, but I don't know what I really expected."

He scoffed as she grinned up at him, turning his attention to the helm he held. He found it curious that they never defaced his helm. Perhaps it was the reflective surface that dissuaded them.

It wasn't uncommon for chaplains to pay special care to their skull masks. It was an art of balance. A balance between a chaplain's role as symbol of righteousness before allies, and an icon of terror before foes. It often turned their masks into stunning collages of the Imperial Fist's heritage, but it was always tempered by the lines of inscribed litanies reserved for their enemies.

But his mentor had a more simplistic dogma. He took the dark steel of the helm and turned its surface into a perfect mirror, with only the coal red eye lenses to stare out of. He never explained why he did so, but Amadeus took a liking to it. Perhaps whoever desecrated his armor shied away from their reflections, unnerved by the reminder of what they had become.

 _Or perhaps their sorcerer decided that such a helm was already suited to who you'd play host to._

Amadeus grit his teeth and pushed the thought out of his mind, and turned the helm around in his hands. He wordlessly replaced his helmet, locking out the colors once more. The grim reminder smothered any more conversation, with only the sound of his armor re-locking to break the silence. Eventually, Yang spoke up again.

"So what are you going to do now?"

Amadeus didn't know himself. He hardly had planned ahead more than a few moments, playing catch up to everything around him. But what would he do now? Perhaps he would find anyone of sufficient authority, and explain the situation to them, as tedious as it might be. He could already foresee that the task would tax even his patience. Enshattered's mere presence in his mind exerted a pressure against his will; a slight, but constant tension on everything that bound his sense of self together. But it was a problem for another time; he needed to finish making himself presentable.

"I must see to my weapons before I meet with your masters."

"You know," Yang raised an eyebrow at the thought. "Ozpin might not take kindly to that."

"I mean nothing by it. It simply won't do for a marine to be unarmed."

"So having that hand cannon doesn't count as being armed?" She turned over a sliver of shrapnel she had picked up from the floor earlier. A bolt fragment. He supposed she wasn't the type for subtlety.

"It seemed to do the trick, until-"

"Yang, I am not one for half measures. A chaplain going about with no more than a side arm _simply isn't done._ My predecessors would turn in their graves."

"Even if your tradition might send off the wrong message?"

She seemed more curious than dissenting, so he wasted no more time debating the point. He opened the pod again and inspected what the 20th had seen fit to issue him. The first thing he saw was a small box of bolts, the case clearly removed from a drop pod's reserve supplies, and barely enough to last him more than a few clips.

But what truly caught his eye was what laid against the back of pod, where several cryogenic fluid lines were retrofitted to lock weapons to.

A power sword and a Crozius Arcanum.

* * *

Yang watched him turn and inspect the two weapons slowly, as if he were testing each one. She recognized the sword for what it was, but the hammer caught her interest.

From what she could tell, nothing was designed to transform, all completely static in their form and function. They didn't hide anything; in fact, the hammer seemed to brazenly display its purpose. Unlike the sword, the hammer was wonderfully well crafted around its head; a two headed eagle curling its wings around a book. She could make out dozens, maybe hundreds of tiny words etched into the golden surface, in a language she couldn't read, but was oddly familiar.

It wasn't really the fact that it was decorated that piqued her curiosity. After all, practically every screw in Nora's weapon was stamped with a heart. It wasn't uncommon to see those kinds of additions to weapons, but they were almost always light-hearted. Maybe a tongue and cheek joke with a bit of cockiness mixed in. Never really serious.

But she swore that some of those words looked like names, of people or places. Others went on for entire lines, the cursive script flowing with methodical precision and purpose. Maybe if Amadeus looked more stable, she would have asked him what it all meant, but for now it was a mystery.

As he spun it in his hand, she got a reminder of the scale of it all. It wasn't fair really, the way that Amadeus and Alpharius could suddenly _loom_ over you, just as you started getting used to the two and a half meter giant towering over you.

Judging by the way her hair was getting buffeted, it was much too heavy to be practical for anyone other than Amadeus, who seemed perfectly content to idly test its weight as he inspected the sword. She couldn't help but grin as she realized what he was thinking about. She would have recognized that look anywhere, even with the helmet on. Hunters and Huntresses all had to make the same decision some time.

"Having trouble choosing between them?"

He nodded slowly, but she didn't expect his reply. She really didn't know where to stand with him, at least Alpharius was consistent about how he messed with everything you were thinking.

"They found my Crozius Arcanum." He didn't seem completely happy about the fact. "It is my symbol of office as a Chaplain. I'm obligated to carry it."

He set the sword down for a moment and took the time to slide a white silk handkerchief along the haft of the hammer. Yang winced as it came away with a heavy oil stain. Weiss wouldn't be thrilled about that at all.

"It's a wonderful weapon. It is no relic, but I have yet to see it fail me. The combat style it imparts upon its wielder is consistency incarnate, and for that I cannot set it aside."

He picked up the sword and set the hammer down in its place.

"The sword is no masterpiece, but it is no disaster either. The blade offers a simplicity that little else can. Still, it lacks the raw power of the crozius, and I haven't used one in decades. Even while I practiced swordsmanship, my form varied far more than I'd liked."

Considering all that, Yang thought the decision was a no-brainer. She wasn't too surprised though; blunt force trauma was always the way to go.

"But-" His words came out in a hushed rush, filled with restrained reverence.

"-The blade holds so much potential. I've seen the limitless possibilities of mastering it first hand, and aspiring to that is something sublime. The sword is simply something I can't step away from in good faith."

She supposed she understood him, but it wasn't really a big deal, was it? If he already knew how to use either one well enough, he didn't have to permanently commit to one or the other. Unless...

That was it. The perfect idea.

Every so often in her life she had a eureka moment, and whatever they produced could never be outdone by any other alternative. Even if they flew in the face of reason or logic, they always worked out wonderfully. She'd never gone wrong with one, and this one was no exception. It was so breathtakingly simple it had to work.

"Why not both?"

She watched smugly as his initial scoff faded into silence, and as he slowly started shifting his gaze from one to the other. He picked up the hammer, and turned both weapons over in synchrony, as if he were considering them both at once for the first time. She could see her idea worm its way into his mind, banishing all resistance and counter-propositions with contemptuous ease.

Gripping both weapons, he walked back to over to the box. Amadeus reached in, and started doing something she couldn't see, with only the teasing clinks of metal on metal to drive her up the wall in suspense.

When he pulled his arms back out, she saw that he had _chained_ the weapons to his arms. Short lengths of slack hung from his wrists, swinging weightily in the air. _Chains_ for goodness sake.

"Woah, what are you- Wait." He met her gaze as he adjusted the chains. "Let me guess, it's another tradition."

"A quick study." The wry smile in his voice perfectly matched the one on his helmet.

As he moved towards the door, Yang was nearly overcome by the sight. He held his arms loosely at his sides, forming a perfect tableau with the mid-morning sun at his back. The huge sword in one hand, the massive hammer in the other, the swinging chains, the bold, freshly painted armor, the freaky reality warping guitar strapped to his back, and the crimson red eyes that could stare straight down into her soul.

"That's a killer look Amadeus."

He regarded her coolly, and simply flicked the switch on the hilt of the sword in reply, letting a harsh blue web of lighting flood over the blade. It hissed and seethed, the lightning crackling and arcing outwards, bathing the room in a pale light.

"You think so?"

* * *

Perhaps another time the Legionnaire's attention would have been completely captured by the levitating airships. Their markings were Atlesian if the information he collected was anything to go by, and the implication of their progress in technology was certainly intriguing by any stretch of the imagination.

Regardless, while the shining behemoths in the sky certainly presented an interesting addition to the view from Beacon's main avenue, he had a time window to hit. Assuming that the transportation shuttles from Beacon to Vale adhered to their schedules, he had little time to spare to make it to their cliff-side landing pad.

Still, their bows were strangely familiar in the way that they seemed to be designed as a structure rather than an aerodynamic body. In space, the practice was perfectly acceptable, so long as the structure was sound, but to see it in an atmosphere was odd.

Unfortunately for Remnant's shipwrights, the Legionnaire's fascination ended there. As his gaze passed over the rest of the airship, his faith in Atlas' aesthetic tastes waned. He couldn't quite accurately describe what the engine nacelles and pseudo out-rigging reminded him of, but something close to the unholy bastard child of a Tau cruiser and a Dark Eldar corsair ship came to mind. At least the transportation shuttles were less objectionable.

As he drew close to the shuttle, he couldn't avoid drawing attention on his approach, but it mattered little. So long as he got on the shuttle unmolested, what did a few nervous and inquiring looks amount to? If he did nothing remarkable other than simply being there, his fellow passengers wouldn't read too much into it. The thought of them eventually dismissing him as another eccentric hunter amused him in its viability.

But who was he trying to fool?

They wouldn't be able to shrug off the sight of him. He'd spent too much time in the presence of the far, far corrupted to be unaffected. All things considered, his physical presence fraying at the edges was a small price to pay, considering what had become of others who took similar gambles.

As the doors closed he received a notification from the modified vox he had linked to Remnant's noosphere knock-off. There weren't many that could contact him that way.

"Hello Alpharius."

Her voice was a surprise to him, but not necessarily an unwelcome one. He just needed to be more patient with her.

"Weiss, I don't recall linking this vox to your scroll."

"Ruby gave the rest of us the number."

Now _that_ was an unwelcome surprise. That wasn't what he had in mind, since the rest of them didn't quite trust him as implicitly as Ruby did. He wasn't certain about giving them all such access to him, but he could always cut them off if he decided it was necessary.

"Do you have some time? You did say you were in a rush."

So polite and formal. He had to hand it to her; he couldn't quite tell if it was genuine. Not without being there.

"Time pressure has ceased to be a factor for me." He considered sitting, but he didn't think the seats would take his weight. Besides, standing seemed to be a trend onboard.

"So, to what do I owe the pleasure? I doubt you called to inquire after my well-being."

Weiss didn't rise to the bait. She was far more collected without his physical presence, but that was common amongst the un-enhanced. He was idly tempted to test her nerve, but he set aside the thought.

"Ruby wanted you to see something. Can you receive pictures on your end?"

"The data formatting won't be a problem."

She sent him an image, which he superimposed onto his visor. It was a good picture. It wasn't so much the composition or its content that made it so, but the impeccable timing.

One of the staff members he had met was at the foot of a staircase. Oobleck, he recalled. Ersatz recaf poured languidly over the edge of his slackly held mug, the spillage completely forgotten as he took in the sight of Amadeus advancing down the steps towards him. The way his bloodshot eyes stared through skewed glasses only underscored the shell-shocked look on his face.

It seemed that Amadeus was the distraction he had hoped for. Evidently, the appearance of another marine was amongst the worst scenarios the poor man could have imagined. The looks of dismay and outright fear in some faces of the crowd just added to the beautiful spectacle of suppressed hysteria.

But it was Amadeus who was at the center of the show. He'd cleaned up surprisingly well, and managed to get a fresh coat of paint to cover the blood-circles and pentagrams, now showing off the pomp and regalia of the Imperial Fists for all to see.

The chaplain's onyx black armor stood out against the riot of colors that was typical of Remnant's populace. Perhaps it was the way the dark paint accented the honors and livery etched onto the armor in silver and yellow. The bold display was unapologetically over the top, but that was typical of loyalists. He wondered how it felt to wear one's colors so brazenly. Of course, he wore the Legion's hydra whenever he could, but it was never difficult to cast it off, should he be required to.

You never saw a Legionnaire die for a standard, but that wasn't the case with other legions. They had always treasured their symbols and ideals over their objectives.

Or perhaps it went further than that. There was something else that gave Amadeus a significantly different air about him. It wasn't just how Amadeus took more pride in his colors than he did. No, it was the way he held himself as he walked down the steps, and how his gaze swept over the crowd of disquieted faces. The confidence and faith in the armor he wore, and the weapons he carried. The absolute surety he exuded.

He remembered how there were inklings of it during the Great Crusade. How stories and propaganda spread of the Astartes, and how they grew in absurdity. As they passed from ear to ear, he expected them to fade, but the falsehoods stuck around. At the time, he supposed it was only reasonable for such an infatuation with over-inflated tales and outlandish deeds to exist, but he couldn't take them seriously.

Hammer of the Emperor? Angels of Death? How droll.

Space Marines were tools, extremely effective tools, but nothing more than that. While his legion dismissed it, the others seemed to embrace the idea that they were more than the Emperor's genius applied to flesh.

Of course, they didn't take it seriously. He remembered his bemusement as a Raven Guard marine was persuaded to etch _'Born to Kill'_ onto the brow of his helm in high gothic, as a dubious prize for getting the lowest kill tally in his squad.

But over time, their outlook changed. He remembered seeing the same helm only a few years ago, worn by a captain as honors. Every hint of the irony it had been made with had eroded away over ten thousand years. Nowadays the loyalists look their own disinformation very seriously.

Most of the time, it meant little, considering the nature of asymmetric warfare that Astartes so loved to indulge in. But on occasion, it drove overconfident marines to take fights they objectively shouldn't; thinking they could replicate the tale of a single squad of marines holding a kilometer of trench-line. Some marines put more worth in laurels than sense, and they paid the price. They forgot that immortality didn't equate to invulnerability.

But that wasn't to say it was a general trend. They weren't common by any means, but there were special cases. Chapters that, through combination of legacy and experience, grabbed at the lies spewed out by the masses and ran with them. They drank in those same impossible expectations, and met them. They took the same hopeless fights, and against all odds, won them.

Instead of finding cause for arrogance in the Imperium's awe of them, they saw a standard to strive for. Ten millennia of brutal war gifted them a far deeper understanding of the role of Space Marines than their predecessors ever did, and the results of it were plain to see. They consistently produced marines that unerringly fell into the new roles the Imperium demanded of them, as if they were fated to do so from the beginning.

Marines whose sense of purpose was too great to give ground. Marines whose strength of will could turn aside psychic fire. Marines whose single minded dedication to their bloody craft made them peerless champions of humanity. Marines that became the bulwark against the terror.

Amadeus was a prime specimen to behold.

With a sword in his hand, and crozius in the other, his forward march wouldn't have been out of place on the front lines of against a Black Crusade. As his impromptu audience made way for the master of war, he strode through them, burning with the controlled threat of sudden, brutal death. Encased in his immaculate armor, he was every inch the perfect Imperial marine.

Or he would have been, if not for the daemoness.

Amadeus couldn't have been pleased to be seen in such a portentous light, but he wasn't letting it show. At least he had the wits about him to maintain some semblance of control over the daemon strapped to his back, especially in front of the likes of Oobleck.

Still, he left the materium behind him in turmoil, trailing tattered pieces of reality like so many shredded ribbons. The symbol of the Imperial Fists on his pauldron was wreathed in warp fire, blazing with darkness from beyond. The steps behind him were riddled with decaying maelstroms of broken dreams and tortured souls.

The daemon weapon itself blurred with the malign energy that pulsed under its surface. The strings were still, taut and tense with unknowable forces.

No... That's wasn't all. The legionnaire realized that he had lied to himself earlier. As he contemplated the sonic weapon, he saw that there was more to the picture than perfect timing. In less time than it took for him to draw a breath, everything fell into place. In a single moment, it struck him like a hammer.

Once mindless swirls and vortices in the materium became stunning confluences of impossible beauty drifting gently like petals in the wind. Once painfully bright tendrils of warp fire sprang into radiant vivacity, like brilliant flowers in bloom. The negative space of the crowd span into fantastic fractals, paving Amadeus' path with rapturous splendor from a transient plane of reality.

For the barest of instants, everything resolved around the heart of the carnage. For less than a heartbeat, everything was _perfect._

Then, like bolter fire stitching across a masterful painting from a lost civilization, it was irrevocably taken away. The imagery faded, returning to normality.

How did she do it? No, how did the daemoness _know_ how to do it?

Did she always know how to wring one's heart with a mere hint of what infinity held? Did the daemoness' nature inherently let her contour the depths of one's soul with nothing more than a whispered promise out of nothingness?

Or was it something she acquired? Did she never find a way to cross the knife's edge of a gap into the human condition? Did she spend millennia in the void, observing and experimenting as a magos did with a pre-Imperial cogitator? Laboriously scribbling down what stimuli preceded which reactions, ever so slowly building an arcane, overwhelmingly expansive database that granted you the power to chain down stars?

Understanding, comprehending, but yet never quite knowing _why_ such miracles appeared at their beck and call?

"Alpharius? Are you still there?"

The legionnaire realized he had gone quiet during his contemplation. Considering the utterly unfazed countenance Weiss exuded, it seemed that the daemoness only saw fit to let him see her handiwork. An odd thought.

Still, it wouldn't do to ignore Weiss now.

"I am. I appreciate the gesture; it was thought provoking."

"Ruby thought you'd like it."

"She was correct, but I'm guessing that you didn't share the sentiment."

It was a probing test that he couldn't help but administer, if only to see her reaction.

"Your traveling companion is dangerous, Alpharius. I don't know about him staying at Beacon, especially when you're leaving."

"That isn't your choice to make though, Ms. Schnee. Such an arrangement would be between Amadeus and the powers that be within your fine institution."

"I know, but I don't know if you're making the right choice by having us stay quiet about his… initial condition. If he truly poses the danger you made him out to be, we really ought to make it known to the professors."

"I see the logic within your argument, but let us simply say that I had my reasons when I asked for your silence." He mused, considering his response. He wanted to keep them at arm's length, but they were quite fascinating when driven into corners.

"But Ruby's decision stayed your hand. You let her so easily dictate your team's actions?"

"We do." No hesitation. No shame. Just a hint of worry. "She's our leader."

He decided not to press the issue. It was superfluous anyways; they were going along with it, so he needn't be too forward. He let her take the lead, not wanting to turn their discussion into an interrogation.

"So what's happening next?"

Just how far could he indulge her? He couldn't let her know everything, but didn't think risking her cooperation was worth complete secrecy. He could afford to dangle a hint of what was to come in front of her, so long as it sounded harmless.

"Tell me Weiss-" He watched the buildings of Vale slowly edge into his view, glowing in the afternoon sun.

"-Are you familiar with the term carte blanche?"

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Thank you for your patience. I'm considering shortening future chapters, now that the beginning of this story is fleshed out. Please leave a review, even if it's something as simple as 'I guess this was ok.' On that note, if you have a question you want answered, I would be able to reply to PMs much more quickly than reviews.**


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